


Firebird

by Wind_Ryder



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Anger, Bad coping mechanisms, Bethlem Royal Hospital, Child Abuse, Dad!McGraw, F/M, Grief, M/M, Mental Illness, Mourning, Multi, Now/Then, Other, PTSD, Period Typical Homophobia, Period Typical Sexism, Presumed Death, Recovery, Revenge, Sexist words, Slavery, Young John Silver, child sexual assault, cursing, description of torture, period typical racism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2019-03-10 10:26:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 30,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13499998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wind_Ryder/pseuds/Wind_Ryder
Summary: There are two truths in the world.One: Before Thomas and Miranda leave London to begin Governing Nassau, they receive a note that reads:  "Lt. James McGraw died a resident of Bethlem Hospital on December 25, 1705."And they have nothing left to live for.and Two: on December 25, 1705, Admiral Hennessey takes James from Bethlem and brings him to his new life far away from London society.  He is told he will never see the Hamiltons again.These two truths were never meant to be spoken at the same time.





	1. Death

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that this story will deal with one version of John's backstory. It is neither pleasant nor comfortable. Although the scenes of childhood sexual assault are in no ways depicted in any sexually explicit manner, they will be discussed and there is a great deal of trauma associated with it. Chapters with any details regarding this topic will be noted. 
> 
> Thank you for reading!

_Now,_

_Nassau, March 3, 1708_

After the smoke clears and the military has swept the shores for stragglers, Miranda follows her husband to their new home.  They are surrounded by guards.  Guns at the ready.  There are faces peeking from the doorways.  Filthy and uncertain.  Women, children, and the occasional disgruntled man.  

Thomas holds her hand as they walk through the destruction.  It’s the most affectionate he’s been since they left London.  He doesn’t look at her, and his hand is cold around hers, but at least it’s some form of contact.  

It takes them a good amount of time to walk from the beach up to the house that’s been _provided_ to them.  The word _Governor_ is carved onto a faded piece of wood hanging by one nail.  Years ago, Miranda remembers hearing a story about how the acting Governor’s child had been dragged out of the house and murdered.  How all of Nassau fell to ruin as the pirates overthrew the firmly established reign of the place.

Now this is their home.

They step inside.  The militiamen are under the command of Admiral Hennessey, and he quickly barks orders out for the house to be fully fortified and secured.  A supply train will be supervised from the ship to the house, bringing their luggage and personal belongings with them.  “I trust everything will be in order,” Hennessey states with the exact amount of passion as they feel already.  It’s clear he wants to leave them to their devices, and Miranda wants nothing less.

She waits for Thomas to bid the man leave, but he doesn’t say anything.  Merely releasing Miranda’s hand and walking deeper into their new home.  Tugging his white wig from his head without so much as a glance in their directions.  “Yes, Admiral,” Miranda says for him.  “That will be all.”

The man is gone before she so much has a chance to blink.  Fleeing from the house and shutting the door firmly behind him.  Miranda watches him depart.  Hands folding together at her front.  She feels strangely abandoned, even if there’s no reason for that feeling to persist.

Taking a deep breath, she inspects her new quarters.  The front door opens to a large rectangular space.  Four doors on the bottom floor lead to square rooms of equal size.  They are already set accordingly as a dining room, drawing room, kitchen, and lounge.  Upstairs there are four more rooms, however these are for personal use.  Each has a bed, desk, and armoire available for use.  

The rooms on the left are conjoined by a door along their shared wall.  Thomas has selected the one nearest the stairs for his own.  It leaves little question as to which will be hers.  Miranda stands in the doorway and watches as Thomas pulls at his cravat.  His fingers fumble with the knot.  

Likewise, Miranda finds herself reach up to untie the silk ribbon of her hat.  The pale green had reminded her once of the sea.  But it’s so different from the ocean that laps at Nassau’s shores.  Freeing it from beneath her chin, she pulls the hat loose and feels her hair shift at the base of her neck.  Strands sliding free from where she’d held them in place.  The hat feels awkward in her hands, but she has little notion of what she’s meant to do next.

“Thomas,” she tries, but is cut off as soon as the name leaves her lips.

“I’d rather like to be left alone now, please.” He hasn’t looked up at her.  Hasn’t met her eyes at all since the attack on Nassau began.  They could hear the screaming from the ships.  Safe from any form of return fire, they’d sat below deck and listened to the horrors outside.  Only climbing up the stairs once they’d been given leave to do so from the Admiral.

They’d been told there were likely several hundred casualties at the onset.  Likely closer to a thousand by the time the Navy laying waste to the bay.  

Even on their short walk from the beach, cleared though it had been, Miranda had seen bodies lying in the alleys.  Broken, mutilated things that all seemed to stare at her.  Casting their blame.  Decrying their fate.  

Miranda’s jaw clenches as she tries to find a sense of purpose that she can cling to.  It’s too late for them to turn back now.  All of Nassau has been laid to waste on their command.  There were lives destroyed by their actions, but there had to be good that could come from them too.  There had to be something they could cling to.  “Nassau will rebuild.  We have the Merchants and the—”

“—When I said I wanted to be left alone, Miranda, I had thought I’d been perfectly clear.”  Finally he looks up.  Finally his blue eyes glare sharply in her direction.  It takes everything she has not to flinch.  Not to look away.  Not to allow herself to be cowed by his ire.  

“You will not send me to my room like a recalcitrant child, Thomas.  I am your wife, not your servant.” His jaw clenches.  Nostrils flare.  

They’ve barely shared two words between themselves since they received the letter.  Miranda doesn’t even know where that paper is now.  If Thomas has been torturing himself by the one sentence scrawled on the small square page.  Thirteen words that tore at them both, but carried the most weight, perhaps for Thomas.  

They had thought that they had done the right thing.  They had thought they were so clever, that they’d managed to outfox a system that peers insisted couldn’t be beat.  They’d agonized over every detail, they’d argued over each and every contact and correspondence.  They’d tried so hard to make sure they did everything right.

They had blood on their hands.

It hadn’t been enough.  Their prize for their intelligence had been a missive that rejected their hopes and dreams and brought only punishment in their wake.

_Lt. James McGraw died a resident of Bethlem Hospital on December 25, 1705._

Miranda steps into the room.  “I know what he meant to you.”  She holds her hat by its ribbons in one hand, then lifts the other to his face.

Thomas backs out of reach, and walks away.  He takes quick, purposeful steps down the stairs and out the front door.  Miranda can just barely see him from the balcony overlooking the stairs.  A window is cracked a touch, allowing fresh air to breathe into the house.  It takes Thomas’ voice up to her ears.  “I’d like to investigate the fortifications currently present in the fort,” Thomas informs his guard.  “Please ensure that Lady Hamilton stays within the house at all times, and that no harm comes to her while I am gone.”

Fury sparks in her chest and she slams his bedroom shut behind her.  She hopes he can hear it.  Marching to her new room, she locks the connecting door, and throws herself on her bed.  Anger pierces her heart.  She takes dusty pillow from its place at the headboard, lifts it to her face and screams into the down.

She hates it here.  But unlike Thomas, she’s not the least bit sorry to see it all burning down.

She just wishes London could share the same fate.

***

The supply train begins, and Miranda busies herself with unpacking and organizing as best she can.  Some of the sailors help her move things, particularly the larger items.  

A painting went here, a candelabra there.  She’s not entirely satisfied with the way the house is laid out, but it’ll do for now.  She’s adjusting a carpet on the floor in the large rectangular entrance, when a black man in well-maintained clothes approaches the home.

The guards out front stop him at once, but he provides paperwork explaining his appearance, and bows his head formally at their position.  Walking to the door, she asks what’s going on, and the man immediately introduces himself as a Mr. Scott.  “I’ve been gifted to you and your family from the Guthries, who wish for your successful station here in Nassau,” he informs her.  The soldiers outside flip through the introductory letter and detailed paperwork he’s provided, eventually passing the documents to Miranda to review.  

She skims the letter awkwardly.  In London they’d employed maids and a butler to manage their household, but neither she nor Thomas had ever purchased a slave.  At one point, Alfred had several as a part of his estate, but he had never replaced them after they died or were sold.  With Mr. Scott’s papers in hand, Miranda’s not entirely sure what the protocol is at the moment.  She feels an uncomfortable twist in her stomach, and clears her throat before she speak.

“My husband is not presently at home in order to receive you,” she tells him carefully.

“I am dedicated now to you and your family, ma’am.  It is your choice as to what I should do next.”  He waits patiently for her decision, and Miranda wishes she had time to consider.  

“Come inside,” she invites awkwardly.

Mr. Scott takes a step forward, but is immediately stopped by the guards.  They take their time searching him for any weapons.  Pat his arms, legs, hips, and ankles for good measure.  “I don’t believe you should be by yourself with him, ma’am,” one of the younger soldiers informs her.

Frustration building already, Miranda scowls.  “Then you will have to supervise us then, won’t you?” she asks.

Turning on her heel she marches back inside, listening as Mr. Scott follows not four steps behind.  

“Have you eaten Mr. Scott?” Miranda asks.  The kitchen isn’t entirely bare.  Someone had the good sense that bread and cheese would be required until something more suitable could be obtained.  Fruits also sit placidly in a bowl.  It all seems quite neat and proper compared to the utter devastation that had been laid upon this town less than twenty-four hours before.

“I have ma’am.”

It’s not an answer she cares much for.  She’s quite uncertain as to what constitutes as a meal for a slave in Nassau, but she doubts it’s much to be admired.  Fetching two plates she sets them on the table.  “Myself, I’m quite famished.  Please, join me.  I would be indebted to you if you could instruct me on Nassau and what I might come to find while living here.”

Their guard steps forward, scandalized “Ma’am—”

“—You may wait by the door and watch, but you’ll not tell me how to conduct my house,” she snaps.  Adding a tight, “Sir,” at the end just to make her point clear.  He falls into attention.  Dropped mouth snapping shut with a click.

Mr. Scott observes the proceedings with a critical eye.  Slowly moving to sit at a chair she pulls out for him.  Miranda hands him his plate and sits down.  She hasn’t felt the thrill of acting outside of the barriers of society in some time.  Hasn’t been able to relish in the rebellion that seems ever present within her.

Her anger at Thomas is easily swept into her desire to just do something dangerous and damn the consequences.  What more could the world possibly take from them now?  Even their lives seem immaterial if this is what living looks like.

Across from her, Mr. Scott waits.  Contemplating his words and her position with the utmost of care.  It doesn’t matter how long he takes to talk to her.  So long as he does.  She wants to know what this new world has to offer them.  Wants to distract herself from the miasma that threatens to choke her from within.  

“There are some things that anyone should know about Nassau,” he eventually begins.  His accented voice is pleasant to her ears.  She’s unfamiliar with its origin, but she is hardly a scholar.  Nor does she presume that such a question would be welcome.    “The first is that she is unconquerable.  The enemies you have defeated today will merely return in another form.  One day it is the Spanish, the next it is pirates.  Now you.”  Her jaw clenches at the reminder.  “Someone else will come.  It is only a matter of time.”

“Is that a threat?” their guard asks, hand on his blade.

“Enough,” Miranda snaps.  He settles back into place.  “Go on,” she requests politely.

Mr. Scott frowns deep.  Lines cross his brow.  He squints a touch, as though he were trying to fully piece together who she was deep in her soul.  Then, just as quickly, his eyes slide to look at something over her shoulder.  “The next is that this Island will take everything from you.  Even that which you don’t think you have to lose.”  She blinks.  Hears something behind her, and turns.  

There’s a boy clearly trying to sneak through the house.  He’s got a necklace in his hand that she recognizes from one of her packed bags.  He can’t be older than thirteen or fourteen, and he’s dressed in loose clothes.  Bare feet soundlessly stepping on their floorboards.  He freezes when he realizes he’s been caught, and then has the audacity to smile.  Before he turns and flees.  Their guard sees him and shouts a protest, but the child’s fled through an opened window.  He’s disappeared before anyone knows which way he goes.

Mr. Scott laughs, and Miranda stares at him.  Dumbfounded.  “Welcome to Nassau, Mrs. Hamilton.  It is filled with creatures like that, and it is unlikely to change any time soon.  Even with your husband’s influence.”

Her heart hammers in her chest, and she can’t help but wonder what precisely God has deemed to punish them with next.

* * *

 

_Then,_

_London, December 25, 1705_

The sea is cold.  Terribly cold.  There are no fires that can warm the soul.  No hearths that can be sat by in order to feel a sense of humanity.  There is only the body on a wooden beast, and the icy cold waters of the sea.

And yet, James McGraw would trade his future for a chance to sit below decks on a frigid vessel in crossing the ocean in this damnable season, if only to avoid one more hour in this place.  

He coughs loudly.  Tucks his chin to his chest and pulls his knees in tighter as he croaks again and again. There is no blanket he can use to wrap himself with.  The attendants had feared he’d not learn temperance if he indulged in such frivolities.  The stone beneath his bottom chills him to his very bones, and his joints ache miserably as he huddles inwards.  

Coughing again, James winces.  Phlegm has gurgled up his throat and he feels it filling his mouth.  He spits.  Watching the glob smack against the stone.  He hadn’t thought it possible to actually _miss_ winter at sea.  Hadn’t thought a place on earth could actually be worse than those dreary months of patrolling borders.  

He closes his eyes.  Shivers violently.  His stomach reminds him, again, that it’s miserable and thinks he’s doing quite a poor job of maintaining it’s meager requests for happiness.   _Sustainability,_ his stomach all but begs.   _No need for indulgence, merely sustainability._  He’s rather apologetic over the fact that day in and day out he’s been otherwise incapable of meeting its requests.

James misses his hair.  Misses how warm it was.  He could hang it over his ears and hide in the strands and it felt nice.  They shaved it when he arrived.  Held him down and brought a blade to his scalp.  Cutting and sawing until there was nothing but a ragged mess left behind.  A mess they see fit to return to similar states of disrepair every few weeks when his skull decides its had enough being bald.

His clothes had been taken from him upon arrival, of course.  His naval uniform was unbecoming on a man of his...present reputation.  No matter that half the men in the navy found warmth and pleasure in a willing body on the ship.  Sleeping for pleasure with a man of your station was one thing.  Doing so with a Lord of good standing was merely foolishness.  He should have known better.

Between Thomas Hamilton and him, the world was always going to destroy James McGraw.  Months ago, he’d held out hope that Thomas or Miranda would come for him.  But they hadn’t.  He’d not seen even a glimpse of their well loved faces.  Not even the Admiral came.  He’d been abandoned and forgotten about.

The doctors insist that he’ll come to understand God’s position in such matters soon enough.  The devil had led James astray, but they would lead him back to the correct path.  They would bring him to justice.

James coughed.  God will be deciding his fate soon enough if this chill had anything to say about it.  St. Peter himself will be standing with his book of fate, determining whether he may pass through the pearly gates into heaven or sink into hell and be damned for all eternity.  

Perhaps fate’s already decided.  

Perhaps this is hell after all.

Coughing again, he feels his breath leave him.  He coughs harder and harder, incapable of catching another lungful of air.  His chest aches.  His head buzzes.  He can feel how numbness affects his toes and fingers.  Tears press against his eyes and he wonders if his time has come at last.

Keys jingle in the lock to his living quarters (cell).  He manages to look up and squint at the attendants as they enter.  Two men that James doesn’t recognize.  They don’t speak to him as his arms are snatched.  He’s held between their bodies.  More coughs surge through him, and he struggles to find his footing.

It fails him, though, and the attendants don’t stop for him to manage.  They drag him from his tiny space.  James’ head lolls awkwardly.  His watering eyes shut.  Perhaps they’ve taken him to lay in his coffin.  Maybe it’s time for him to rest at last.

Doors open.  

Cold air slaps James’ face and what little breath he has shudders through him.  He feels his heart slowing as it miserably gives him a quailing cry.   _I’m tired,_ his heart whispers.   _It hurts._ He apologizes.  He doesn’t know what else he can do.  He doesn’t have it in him to ask it to rest.  Not yet.  Not yet.  

Not yet.

James is dropped unceremoniously by a dark cut of wood.  Snow shifts beneath his cheek.  His skin cries unhappily.  He doesn’t have the strength to sit up.  He lays there, awaiting whatever fate is due to him.

“Is this the one?” A man asks.  He sounds unhappy.  Frustrated.  

“James McGraw, fourth room on the left.  This is him.” Someone else replies.  

James’ mouth wants to form the words.   _Yes, I’m James, that’s me._ His lips quiver, but his throat never gives voice to his thoughts.  “Get the other one then, we don’t have all day.”

Feet scurry away.  James tries to open his eyes.  Tries to move his arms or shoulders.  It is entirely unaffected.  He thinks he may have even dozed for a moment, as the next thing he’s aware of his something thumping at his side.

Mustering all the strength he can manage, he forces his lids to rise.  A dead face stares back at him.  Red hair.  Face long and swallow in the cheeks.  A quick estimation leads him to believe the man may even be his size.  

Confusion threatens to swallow James whole.  His brain cannot process the logic it has been presented with.  It rebels, anxiously.  He coughs, weak and unhelpful.  He can’t ask what he wants to ask, but he watches as the body is stripped of its clothing.  Rough fingers pull James upright and do the same to him.

He shivers harder in the cold.  The loose shirt and breeches the attendants had given him upon arrival were all he had.  He didn’t know where his uniform had gone.  He’d never been given a second pair of clothes. They couldn’t take these from him too, they _couldn’t._

Limbs refuse to cooperate.  They refuse to respond.  He tries to move them but they are persistent in their belligerence.  He scolds them for their decision, and they complain that they’re too tired to work.

His body is redressed, and James stares dumbly at the new shirt forced over his head.  At the coat that soon follows.  The cravat that’s tied around his neck.  His breeches are changed as well.  Warm and woollen.  “I don’t understand,” he barely manages to whisper.  He coughs again.

His head spins.

He watches, dumbly, as the body of the dead man is dressed in his clothes.  As its dragged up onto the wooden stacks, and James himself is dragged backwards.  He’s walked away from the courtyard, hidden behind a marble post.  Voices raise and he flinches when he hears the voice of the doctor that has spent so much time trying to re-educate him.

“Died in the night you said?” the doctor asks.  James blinks wetly and feels his legs threatening to crumble beneath him. One of the attendants who’d come for him originally keeps him upright and standing still.  “Ah well, the Lord Hamilton will not be pleased.  Nor will the Admiral.  Nothing to be done for it.  Start the fires so we may be done with this business.”

Another cough threatens to bubble up, and the attendant must realize it.  He slams his hand over James’ mouth and James gags against the touch.  Tears stream down his eyes and he struggles desperately for air.  Weak limbs give way and fall entirely complicit to the attendant’s handling of him.

He hears the striking of flint on stone.  The sound of a fire starting, then roaring to life.  Smoke and burning flesh mix in the air.  

Footsteps fade off into the distance, and James is pulled in the opposite direction.  He’s dragged, really, the entire way off the grounds.  A carriage is waiting just down the road from Bethlem Royal Hospital.  “James McGraw, sir.” the attendant says as the carriage door opens.  He’s all but hoisted and thrown inside.  His head strikes the wooden side.  

“Gently!” a far too familiar voice snaps in irritation.

“My pay?” the attendant asks in return.  He doesn’t apologize.  James blinks numbly at the man, then at the small pouch of clinking coins that is passed to him.  The carriage doors close and the horses start to walk.

James commands his eyes to raise and meet Admiral Hennessey’s gaze directly.  They manage to lift high enough to get a brief flash of his lips and nose.  Then, they forfeit this night and he slips quite unintentionally into a deep sleep.

His ears manage only a few seconds longer, however.  Catching the only phrase that he’ll remember most clearly throughout this entire night.  “Congratulations James, you’re dead.”

 _Yes,_ James thought feverishly, _I rather think I am._


	2. The Boy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Chapter contains references to child abuse and psychological trauma

_ Now,  _

_ Nassau, March 3, 1708 _

Thomas returns home well after dark.  He has an almost harried hitch to his step when he opens the door.  Miranda’s sitting by the fire in the drawing room, working on her needlepoint.  She gave Mr. Scott leave to occupy one of the bedrooms upstairs while they awaited her husband’s return, though a guard has insisted on standing by his door.  She’s quite alone when Thomas deigns to approach her.  His breaths coming in short, belying his anxiety. 

“Someone broke into the house?” he asks. 

She is  _ not  _ in the mood.  Preparing another stitch, she takes it upon herself to spite him utterly.  “A boy,” she provides without meeting his eyes, keeping her tone as nonchalant as humanly possible.  “He stole a necklace from the luggage upstairs, hardly a thing worth worrying about.” 

“How did he even gain access to the house?” Thomas asks.  

“One assumes through the window he climbed out of when he fled. Quite a nimble thing, really.” 

Her husband steps closer.  Stands in front of her chair.  She doesn’t look up.  Keeps her eyes locked on the careful design she’s stitching into her cloth. “Miranda, look at me.” 

“Honestly Thomas, I really don’t understand what all the fuss—”

He goes to his knees before her.  Puts his hands on hers to stop her from mutinously stitching anymore.  “Had he been a murderer instead of a thief you would be dead now, my dear.  So perhaps you can excuse me for  _ fussing _ .” His tone is hostile, still. It wrankles something deep inside her.  Her nostrils flare in irritation. 

“I’m rather surprised you care at all,” she says cruelly, with full intentions for it to hurt.   “Considering your behavior this morning, I’d not thought you’d even bother.” 

Seeing him recoil is a mixed blessing.  On one hand, it delights her to watch Thomas’ face finally react to something of her doing.  On the other hand, she loves him too much to fully relish in his turmoil.  He stands up and backs from her.  Walks toward the fire where he remains still.  Breathing harshly.  Fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. 

There’s an intrinsic desire to settle him.  To ease the hurt.  “Someone is already dead because of the choices I made,” he tells the fire darkly.  “I don’t believe I’ll survive it if you shared the same fate.” 

“Many people are dead because of the decisions  _ we  _ have made,” Miranda responds.  She sets her stitching to the side.  Stands up.  The folds of her dress shift as she walk.  Rustling with each step.  Reaching a hand toward her husband, she takes lets her fingers touch the warmth of his sleeve.  The soft weave of his coat.  “The fault is not entirely yours.” 

The spell is, regrettably, broken.  Thomas pulls away.  Keeps his head down.  Lips pressed tightly together.  “Tell me about Mr. Scott.”  He has no intentions of speaking about the letter.  About their James.  No intentions of acting or reacting in any manner that would have been otherwise appropriate. 

He hadn’t even dared to utter his  _ name.  _  As though the mere utterance was a curse.  Or a harbinger of doom.  Miranda wants to press the issue.  She wants to scream James’ name until Thomas reacts.  Locking the doors to keep her husband from running away.  Holding him in place until finally he has the decency to  _ talk  _ about the man they had sacrificed so much for. 

They’d  _ murdered  _ in order to bring James home, and it had all been for what? 

Stony silences in the drawing room of a decrepit Nassau house?

Thomas waits for Miranda to reply to his inquiry, and Miranda pats at the front of her dress.  Smoothing wrinkles on the physical plane while her mind twists unhappily for the appropriate response.  “He’s a gift, apparently,” she settles on.  “From a family in the interior, the Guthries.”

“The Guthries.” The name is repeated with a hefty amount of disdain. 

“You’re familiar with them?” she asks mildly. 

“They’re  _ part  _ of the bloody problem here.  Laundering stolen goods from the pirates for resale in the colonies. I take it they survived unscathed from the assault, then?” It almost sounds as if he wished they’d died with all the rest.  Been part of the dead strewn along the streets.  He doesn’t wait for her response before pressing forward.  He begins to pace instead.  Muttering almost to himself in his fervor.  “They’ll have to be dealt with, I assume.  One cannot leave them to make alliances on their own.  I’ll send this Mr. Scott in the morning with a request for dinner tomorrow evening.”

Feeling a flash of irritation spike through her, Miranda shakes her head.  “You want to have dinner with these people?” 

“What I want doesn’t seem to matter to anyone here or abroad.  But  _ no,  _ I don’t  _ want  _ to dine with the Guthries or any of their ilk.  But needs must, and so we must.”  He stops pacing and looks her over.  “I’m glad you are unharmed.  I’m going to bed.” 

Then he’s gone.  Abrupt departure accented by the even more abrupt sound of the door snapping closed.  Miranda stares after him for a long while, before furiously picking up her stitching and throwing it at the door. Throwing herself back into her chair she glares at the fire.  She wishes they’d never left London.  Nothing has changed for them at all. 

***

The next morning, Miranda finds that Thomas has already left for the day and Mr. Scott has departed with the invitation some hours previously.  The house still needs more organization and preparation, but Miranda finds she cannot stay inside one moment longer.  Determined to see the rest of this new environment, she starts for the door. 

Only to be stopped by one of the soldiers who tells her she’s not permitted to leave. 

“Am I not?” she asks the man coldly.  “Not even if you were to escort me?” 

“No, ma’am.  We’re to make sure you stay inside until your Lord Husband returns.” It’s a comment that leaves her in a fit of pique until Thomas  _ does  _ come back. 

By the time he steps through the door, she’s dedicated herself to unpacking every single item that belonged to him personally and leaving it in a pile in the drawing room.  The clock they’d been gifted from years past is on its side, the clothing he had made before their departure, the wigs and their corresponding boxes.  She throws them into a heap and pretends she doesn’t care. 

The staff avoid questioning her actions and the guards share uneasy looks.  She’d been tempted to make a hasty retreat through the same window that the child thief had the day before, except now there’s a man standing out front with a gun just waiting for the boy to try his luck again.  

When her husband finally does make an appearance, he doesn’t even scold her for her childish behavior.  Doesn’t bat an eye at the mess she’s made that he’ll need to sort through at some point.  Just informs her that they’ll be leaving for the Guthries now, and to prepare herself accordingly. 

“Oh, am I permitted to step foot outside the house?” she snaps.  He doesn’t bother to reply. 

_ This is entirely unsustainable,  _ Miranda knows as she mulishly makes her way upstairs to prepare herself for the evening meal.  

Some of the staff had placed several chests of her personal belongings in her room.  She opened them one after another, looking for whichever held her evening dresses.  Finding the correct one, Miranda pulls a blue gown from the top.  There’s something beneath it though that she doesn’t recognize, and she frowns as she reaches for the bundle.  

It’s a cloth of some sort.  A blanket, in truth.  Pulling it out, she feels her fingers go slack.  Beneath the blanket, hidden carefully under her clothes, were clothing of an entirely different sort.  Breeches.  Trousers.  Boots.  Socks.  Warm woolen shirts and cloaks.  Too industrious to belong to her husband.  Too utilitarian in every way, but they were  _ warm.   _ Warm and comfortable.  

She and Thomas had agonized over their purchase.  Had been as discreet as they possibly could as they prepared for the goods they’d need.  Three years in Bethlem Royal Hospital would have left James with little by way of clothing.  The chill in that place was renowned.  They’d thought that he’d appreciate the clothing.  The ability to dress in something warm and comfortable until they reached the blessed heat of the Bahamas. 

Thomas would have packed this chest.  Carefully hiding James’ clothing from view so that no one would have suspected their hidden agenda.  The blanket would have been wrapped around James’ shoulders as they settled him on his cot below decks.  They’d have given him every comfort in the world.  Even a physician had been procured to attend to James’ every needs while on the vessel. 

Tears press against Miranda’s eyes, and she presses a hand to her mouth.  Crumbles to her knees and tries to hold it in.  Tries not to look at the foolish example of their misguided hope.  Alfred had  _ sworn  _ James would remained alive and unharmed in Bethlem so long as they followed his orders.  So long as they played the part.  He’d  _ sworn  _ it.  

He’d given them updates as to James’ health.  Ensured that they were satisfied, while at the same time wielding the whip with which to strike them with.  Whenever Thomas stepped out of line, Alfred threatened to have James executed.  Whenever a rumor of Miranda’s character had begun to circulate, Alfred threatened to have James flogged.  Privileges were denied at Alfred’s whim, and the man seemed to enjoy the agony his decisions still caused Thomas and Miranda despite the years of separation between them and their dearest companion. 

Thomas had changed everything about himself to fit his father’s mold.  He’d played the doting son, the fierce politician who never strayed from his father’s ideologies.  They’d done everything asked of them.  Prepared the Navy for war against Nassau, agreed to destroy the entire island and set up the colony to Alfred Hamilton’s satisfaction.  

And with Alfred’s death, they thought they could finally free James from confinement.  

They were wrong. 

The floorboards creak behind her, and Miranda turns.  Swatting at the tears in her eyes.  Thomas is there.  Looking past her,  _ always past her,  _ to where James’ things were clearly on display.  His jaw clenches.  She can see a faint tremor running down her husband’s spine.  “You look fine as you are,” he says quietly.  “There’s no need to change.”  The blue dress Miranda had selected lays half forgotten on the ground.  

But she stands and wipes her face.  Approaches him and takes his hand.  They shut the door on the chest and everything it has within.  “I’ll have someone take it away,” Thomas informs their floor.  Miranda wishes she were strong enough to argue, but she doesn’t.  Just accepts that it’s probably for the best. 

He leads her back downstairs, and they climb into the carriage that’s been provided for their use.  Neither of them speak.  

***

The Guthries include one Richard Guthrie, a short and endearing man with a poor wig, and his daughter Eleanor Guthrie, a rude and ill-mannered child who glares at them when they enter and clearly has no interests in speaking to them at all.  Miranda dislikes Richard on principle, and finds much kinship in Eleanor, who seems to exist to spite her father and is only behaving with  _ this  _ much grace because she accepts that she has to.  

Mr. Scott provides the introductions, and Thomas immediately descends into business with Richard.  Leaving Miranda alone to her own devices.  Had this been a proper household and a proper dinner, there would be other ladies for Miranda to entertain herself with.  So she’ll have to make due with Mr. Scott and the feral-child that Richard clearly intends to pass off as a well-bred girl. 

Their home is a respectable distance from the bay, but only if one ignores how terribly convenient it all is.  Miranda’s no simpleton when it comes to running illicit operations, and she’s seen how Thomas and Peter have agonized over retaking Nassau.  That the Guthries are keeping up the appearance of good Christians is all part of their act.  Their ploy.  Richard is still too well connected to Nassau to be anything but an important member of its market.  

“I give it one month,” Eleanor announces as Miranda settles onto a seat across from her.  The girl’s arms are crossed over her chest, and she’s glaring with such open hostility Miranda very nearly laughs at her.  She has much to learn if she ever wants to know real power for herself. 

Playing along is the only option Miranda has left to her, though.  “One month?” she asks, keenly aware of how Mr. Scott stands by the door.  Frowning at them with a kind of open exasperation she’s seen on parents trying to observe their recalcitrant children.  He’d likely spent a great deal of time around Eleanor Guthrie prior ther Richard insisting they take the man as a gift. 

“One month before you’re either run out of this place, screaming for your lives, or you give up entirely and join the account.” 

“Well, you must have some faith in us to last that long,” Miranda teases.  The comment takes Eleanor aback.  The girl flushes dark and then scowls.  

She runs a hand through her ratty hair, even though someone had clearly attempted to do it up in a way mean to be charming.  (It was a poor attempt.  The girl was never going to be satisfied with any form of up-do, Miranda doesn’t know why she even bothered.)  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well every Governor of Nassau there’s been has been on the account, and few rarely take longer than a few days to make it there.  You’ve given us a month.  I take it we have done something to earn such high esteem in your books?” 

Mr. Scott is struggling to hide a smile behind Eleanor’s back.  It’s charming to see.  Particularly as Eleanor seems to be struggling to decide if she’s been backed into a corner or not.  The girl  _ doesn’t  _ want to compliment Miranda, but she also doesn’t seem to know anyway around it.  

Clearly deciding she needs to retreat and switch tactics entirely, Eleanor crosses her arms over her chest and declares, “When you  _ do  _ eventually decide to either die or take up the account, I expect Mr. Scott to be returned to us promptly.  He belongs with my family, no matter what my father says.” 

They’re not the words Miranda expected from the onset.  Indeed, she needs time to consider her reply.  The smile has fled Mr. Scott’s face now, and she does spy sorrow across his features.  Perhaps he truly had been quite close to this girl once.  Likely, he still may be.  There’s not been much time to sever affection.  His  _ gifting  _ had felt as much of an insult as anything else that had transpired. 

“If it is Mr. Scott’s desire to return to your family,” Miranda begins carefully, “I would not interfere with such a request.  It is not my believe that any man should be kept from those who love him.” 

“He raised me.  He’s more father to me than  _ that  _ man.  He should be with me.” Eleanor’s voice raises the more she speaks.  Her fair cheeks flush red with her rage.  Miranda can only nod and accept her ire. 

“If that is his wish, then I will not reject such a request.  Though I would not see him leave us still a slave.”  Eleanor blinks at her.  It’s as if the words are foreign to her ears.  “How can you truly know is intentions if they are not his choice to make?” Eleanor’s lips tremble.  Mr. Scott equally seems enraptured by what Miranda is saying, so much so that even if it takes knocking the door to Thomas’ room down—she’ll speak to him about this very thing.  She doubts Thomas will disapprove.  If nothing else it will server to make their position on the island clear.  

Alfred Hamilton guided their hands for too long.  She wants to destroy what he’s made them become.  No matter what it takes to do that.  

“I’d like a walk around your grounds before dinner, shall you escort me?” she asks Eleanor.  The girl hops to her feet fearlessly and struts to the door.  Hesitating as she passes Mr. Scott.  She bites her lip and then politely asks if he would like to come with them as well.  When he turns to Miranda for permission she merely gestures with her hand.  “The choice is yours, sir.”

“Then I shall accompany you, ma’am.  Miss.” He nods the last bit to Eleanor who brightens immediately.  She slips her small fingers about his palm, and hurries out the door.  The soldiers that had been so dedicated to their duty at the Governor’s house are clearly distracted now that they’re away from their posts. 

They’ve clumped together by the front of the path that leads to the road.  No one looks their way as they exit the house and start walking the premises.  Eleanor chatters the whole way.  She tells Miranda about the garden and the trees.  There are fruits that Eleanor proudly tells Miranda she’d picked herself.  And, when they loop about the back, Eleanor shows Miranda a dagger she kept hidden behind a loose stone in the wall.  

It’s a good little blade.  The leather sheath is well worn, and Eleanor informs Miranda that she’ll use it to cut up anyone who gives her a wrong look.   _ There’s something in the air of Nassau that turns all women exceedingly violent,  _ Miranda thinks as she inspects the dagger politely. 

The craftsmanship is good.  Someone clearly wanted to ensure she had a decent weapon on hand if she needed it.  That she hid it instead of keeping it on her person spoke more to how acceptable it would be than anything else.  Something Miranda has no doubt Eleanor will challenge the older she gets. 

She’s just about to hand the blade back to the girl when she sees him.  The boy from before.  Her thief.  He’s climbed one of the trees that stands on the other side of the wall, and is spying at them from the branches like a monkey.  Bare feet seemingly unafraid of splinters or any such concerns.  

“You there!” she calls out, hastily making her way to the tree.  He startles badly.  Yelping and quickly trying to descend as fast as he could.  She’s grateful he doesn’t seem to be placing speed above practicality though.  He doesn’t simply fling himself from the branches like she half suspected.  Rather, he scrambles. 

It gives her enough time to hastily clamber over the wall and snatch him by the back of his shirt before he could dart off.  Once snared, the child fights madly.  Flailing his limbs and yowling like a captured animal.  His dirty fingers wrap around her wrist and try to dislodge her grip from his shirt.  She very nearly releases him too.  But one lucky twist makes it so she can wrap her arm around his body and hold him against her until Mr. Scott and Eleanor arrive.

Mr. Scott puffs out his chest as he strides forward.  Commanding the child with a tone she hadn’t thought he’d had in him.  “That is enough, boy, you will cease immediately.”  Marvelously the child actually falls still.  Limbs holding in their presently awkward positions until Miranda releases him entirely. 

The child was thin in her arms.  His black hair curly and in a state of complete disarray.  There are twigs and leaves that she can’t help but pluck out, despite how he swats at her hands unhappily.  He adjusts his filthy shirt that is far too big for him.  Re-tying the strange fabric rag he has holding the ensemble in place back around his waist.  When he looks up at her, though, she’s taken aback once more by how terribly  _ blue  _ his eyes are.  They’re extraordinary.

“You have something of mine,” she accuses the child in any case.  He scowls.  

Boldly replying, “Not anymore I don’t,” even as he sniffs loudly and rubs the back of his hand under his nose. 

“Very well, then you’ll owe me the value of that necklace, won’t you now?” 

“No, I don’t.”  

He’s quite the rapscallion.  Budding with energy, and clearly deciding if he should take his chances with running again.  His eyes keep flicking about, but they’ve got him boxed in at the wall.  He’ll have to get through them to flee and his options aren’t very good in that respect.  “I rather think you do,” she tells him firmly.  The boy glares.  

“Why are you even bothering asking him?” Eleanor asks.  She’s got her dagger out at the ready, as if she’s going to stab the child right here.  “He’s just some ship rat, just kill him and be done with it.” 

“You shut your mouth you fucking bitch,” the boy snaps.

_ That’s quite enough of that.   _ Miranda snaps her fingers in front of his face, distracting him from Eleanor for the time being.  “Excuse me!” Blue eyes widen.  His mouth falls open, clearly not expecting the response.  “Is that anyway to speak to a woman?” 

“She’s not a woman she’s a  _ girl.” _

“Shockingly, girls are young women.” 

“Well this one’s going to be an  _ old  _ maid judging by her looks.”  Eleanor lets out a shriek of rage and lunges forward to punch the boy in the face.  The dagger is all but forgotten in her fury.  Mr. Scott quickly snatches the boy and pulls him out of Eleanor’s path even as Miranda stops Eleanor’s charge.  

Eleanor is in no mood to stop her warpath, however.  Screaming as she struggles to be set free.  “I’ll have you flogged for that you miserable cur!”  The boy merely sticks his tongue out at her from behind Mr. Scott’s protective presence.  Hardly aware of the intrinsic danger that he’s in of earning a quite abrupt end to his life here on earth. 

Particularly as the shouting and chaos has not gone entirely unnoticed.  The soldiers have hurried towards them and now they’re all witnesses to the act.  Richard and Thomas joining them soon enough.  Eleanor stops trying to get to John.  She falls still at Miranda’s side, and tilts her chin up at her father daring him to chastise her.  

“Miranda,” Thomas asks slowly, taking them all in with a kind of trepidation she remembers from their meetings with her father.  Preparing himself to ask a question he truly doesn’t want to know the answer to.  “What precisely is going on?”  

Before James had been arrested, Thomas had preached forgiveness in all things.  Afterwards, his heart had hardened in a way Miranda barely recognized.  But even as twisted and malformed as Thomas has become...he cannot believe he will sentence a child to their death.  Not like this.  Readying herself for the worst case scenario, she replies.  “This is the boy who stole from our house yesterday.  He says my necklace is quite unrecoverable.” 

Thomas’s eyes close.  Only for a second.  But they do slide shut.  His mouth forms a quiet  _ ah.   _ Then he turns to the child.  “What are you doing here?” 

“Saw your carriage coming this way.  Thought you might have something worth my while.”  There’s a brazen streak of confidence in him that Miranda isn’t sure what to do with.  But upon closer inspection she can see quite clearly how uncomfortable the boy is.  He keeps glancing at the soldiers and their guns.  His weight keeps shifting from foot to foot.  

“You’d have had better luck trying to steal from the house again while it was unoccupied,” Thomas chides him thoughtlessly.  It brings a smile to Miranda’s lips though.  Warms her heart.  Even as the child’s nose scrunches in confusion and Eleanor’s jaw drops in shock.  “Do you have family here in Nassau?” 

“Not anyone you’d call my family,” the boy replies vaguely.  

“A home, at the very least?” 

This gets him a shrug.  “Got blasted to bits didn’t it?” 

“Ah.” Thomas glances at Miranda, and Miranda arches a brow.  Waiting.  “What’s your name then?” 

Half a beat of hesitation, before, “John...John Silver.  Why?” 

“Because John Silver, I’d very much like to offer you a job, and perhaps lodging if you’ve a mind for it.” 

“I have a job.” 

Thomas is entirely unimpressed by the announcement.  “I can see that.  The job comes with food if you’ll take it.”

It feels coming home.  Like taking a crisp breath of air after being denied it for so long.  Somewhere deep under the recesses of the pain and devastation left in Alfred’s wake, Thomas was still the same person. Miranda cannot stop the smile from pulling at her face.  The way her heart beats desperately for her husband.

Richard is far less pleased.  He sputters.  Shakes his head and places his hand on Thomas’ shoulder waving at the child frantically.  “You don’t honestly mean to invite this...this  _ urchin _ to live in your home?”  

“The point of this occupation in Nassau is to create a productive and successful society,” Thomas informs Richard with no hint of humor at all.  “I will not start it by executing a boy who could otherwise be gainfully employed.  If a home and food is all it requires to see society moving forward, then I will accept that.”  He holds out his hand for Miranda to take.  She does without hesitation.  Then he holds out his hand for John.  “I do believe it’s time to return home then.  Don’t you?  I think there’s been enough excitement for one day.” 

John stares at the outstretched hand as if he has no idea what to do with it.  He glances awkwardly at the men still aiming their guns at him.  The soldiers ready to cut him down as just another pirate child in the making.  He even spares a look for Eleanor and her dagger.  Then he makes the correct choice, and takes Thomas’ hand. 

Finally, it feels like they have a chance for a new beginning. 

* * *

_ Then, _

_ Swindon, January 31, 1706 _

James hates working for Solomon Gibson.  The pay was good, and Gibson was always on time with making said payments, but he  _ hated  _ working for him.  A burglar had destroyed a good deal of the furniture in Gibson’s shop, however, and in order to continue serving the people of Swindon, he needed a carpenter.  James, apparently, was the only one desperate enough for coin to ignore how distasteful the man was.  A thought that still irked James whenever he is forced to spend time in the man’s presence. 

Gibson on his own, sober, and with his mind firmly on his business, is all together pleasant enough.  He has a great boisterous laugh and he speaks knowledgeably with all of his customers.  He has a knack for business that James can admire.  Knows how to budget his income and expenses precisely.  His books are in perfect order.  Something he takes a great deal of pride in. 

Because Gibson is so thoroughly aware of his income and expenses, however, he is entirely uncompromising on any errors that may occur.  Errors that the man’s too young son is almost  _ always  _ held accountable for.  

The boy, a little wisp of a thing named Jack, works harder than many full grown men James knows.  He’s constantly hoisting great slabs of meat from one end of the shop to the other.  Climbing on rickety boxes in order to drag the product up onto one of the hooks for display.  He’s filthy by day’s end, and so exhausted that James has found him dozing on his feet in the evening hours.  

Gibson doesn’t take kindly to anything that could be considered a detriment to his business.  And innocent childish mistakes are often meted out with a kind of punishment that well push passed the boundaries of the absurd.  More than once, James has had to force himself not to watch.  To pretend he cannot hear.  For if he allows the anger to manifest in his heart, he will lash out in a way that will only bring him dischord. 

There’s nothing wrong with hating a man in private, though.  So James hates, and whenever he has the opportunity, he keeps an eye on Jack.  Telling himself that it’s no trouble to nudge the boy awake when he grows weary.  That hauling up a slab too big for a child to be carrying only improves James’ day as he doesn’t have to listen to a child being disciplined. 

Usually he’s quite good at circumventing a problem before it arrives.  He hadn’t been quite as capable today. 

A disobedient nail hadn’t wanted to go where James had wanted it to.  He’d needed to reset it no less than three times, and by the time he’d finally managed it, Gibson had entered and discovered Jack sleeping somewhere he oughtn’t. 

Gibson’s roar of outrage had only been the start.  Horrifying sounds of something hard hitting flesh leave James’ hands too numb to continue working.   _ Cane,  _ James’ brain informs him.   _ Cane,  _ James’ back agrees. His fingers tremble as he listens, counting each strike like he’s supposed to.

He’s still kneeling in front of his uncomplete bench when Gibson finally returns.  Slamming a door behind him as if it too deserves his ire.  James flinches either way.  Slammed doors almost always meant an attendant was mad, and being mad meant—

“—Can you believe that shite?” Gibson asks, as though James is in any position to comment on Gibson’s form discipline.  The man reeks of liquor.  His eyes are glazed a touch.  Face sweaty and red.  “Fucking prick, just like his mother I tell you.” 

James stares at the man dumbly.  Conversation in Bethlem had not been encouraged, nor practiced in any meaningful way.  It takes James a moment to muster the appropriate response Gibson’s clearly looking for.  “His mother?” James asks, feeling entirely out of place in this conversation.  His eyes slant awkwardly toward the door Jack has yet to reappear from behind.  

“Cunt of a woman she was,” Gibson chortles.  He withdraws a bottle of something from one of the cabinets and uncorks it.  Drinks a few loud gulps before letting out a far too obscene sigh of contentment.  “Liked to think she was a Lady, but she enjoyed a bit of rough if you know what I mean?” 

Unbidden, an image of Miranda flares behind James’ eyelids.  Beautiful Miranda in her silk gowns and her bejeweled hair.  Her passions and her sexual wiles.  She’d loved to put him in his place.  Loved to straddle him when there was a chance someone might see and ride him until they both saw stars.  

“Yeah,” he agrees dully.  “I know what you mean.” 

“Course she was just a whore same as the rest of them,” Gibson says.  “And her family knew it too.  Disowned her after we married we never got a cent for that fucking brat.  Only thing that cunt was good for was to get me some coin, and it couldn’t even manage that.  Now all it did was cost me.  Most Goddamned useless bastard if I’ve ever seen one.” 

_ At least you weren’t put in an asylum for fucking her,  _ James thinks darkly.  “He does all right,” he says instead. 

“Fucking waste of space he is.  It’s late, Smith, go on and clean up and get home.”

James hesitates.  He still can’t hear Jack moving behind the door.   _ It’s not your problem,  _ his brain tells him.  “Have a good night Mr. Gibson,” he says numbly.  

Gibson doesn’t even glance at him as he leaves. 

It’s probably best that way. 

And in any case, Jack’s not James’ responsibility.  What Gibson does or doesn’t do with his own son isn’t James’ business.  Getting into other people’s business is wrong.  It is the path that leads good men astray.  James knows he’s not a good man.  But he’s trying to be. 

He’s trying to be. 

Collecting what little supplies he’d brought with him, James leaves Gibson’s shop and heads home.  He shivers in the cold winter chill.  Tucks his hands into the coat that Admiral Hennessey left with him back at the house. 

_ Want to go home,  _ his heart complains.  

His feet swiftly pick up the pace.  He doesn’t walk so much as run.  Head down and body curled forward.  There aren’t too many people in town at this hour.  Not any decent ones at least.  James knows better than to pretend that he’s a decent person.  

He ruins everything he touches. It’s best if he’s out of sight and out of mind.  So no one else can be ruined by his mere presence.  

If he had the money to do so, he’d stay entirely out of anyone’s way and never go into town again.  That’d probably be for the best.  The Admiral had been quite disappointed he hadn’t been able to provide that for James.  He’d even apologized about it in the beginning. 

The man had waited until James was awake enough to appreciate all he’d done for him of course.  The rescue (escape?) from Bethlem had left James horribly ill, but once he’d managed to sit upright and feed himself without drooling, Hennessey explained everything.  He’d sat at James’ bedside and sneered down his nose with a shrewd and distinctly unpleasant expression.  “The Hamiltons have taken it upon themselves to neglect that you ever existed in the first place, and so  _ I  _ have taken it upon  _ myself  _ to ensure you actually manage to live long enough to provide me with grandchildren.” 

The soup James had been eating felt bland and awful on his tongue.  It had been difficult to swallow even that.  His throat aching with each attempt.  “I don’t care what they did to lead you astray, nor do I particularly want to know,” Hennessey continued.  “But I have had a man killed in your stead and removed you from Bethlem, which they did not see fit to do.”  The news had been more painful than his throat.  “I’ve secured funds for you to set yourself up with.  This house is yours in name, I believe James Smith is a frank enough denomination.  The town is aware of your skills as a carpenter and I’ve seen to it to have you begin working the moment you’ve recovered fully.  Am I understood?” 

There was only one answer James could give to that.  This man had raised him, saved him, and provided for him his entire life.  “Yes, sir,” he’d managed to say. 

And as soon as Hennessey left, he’d drank himself into oblivion with the funds so generously provided.  Funds that were, quite regrettably, finite. 

James finally makes it back to his house and quickly locks himself inside.  He curls up next to the door and tries to catch his breath.  His hands are shaking.  His heart feels like it’s going to beat out of his chest it’s pounding so hard. 

He keeps hearing the sound of the cane on Jack’s back.  The slight echo of Jack’s mewling cries and broken apologies. 

_ It’s not your problem,  _ his brain reminds him. 

_ It’s not worth it to care,  _ his heart chastises. 

There’s a bottle of ale waiting for him, and his stomach agrees.  _  Just forget.  _

So he drinks, and does his best to not remember anything at all that hurts when he closes his eyes. 


	3. Ghosts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: depictions of child abuse, graphic discussion of injuries, and terrorizing a young child.

_ Now,  _

_ Nassau, March 4, 1708 _

John sits with his back pressed against the back wall of the carriage.  Miranda doubts he’s even ridden inside one before.  He eyes flit about.  His fingers touch at the sides and the seat.  Little hesitant drags with the tips of each digit before shyly returning them to his lap.  At her side, Thomas is slumped backwards indelicately, one hand resting on his face.  It seems no one’s entirely comfortable here

“I take it conversation with Mr. Guthrie did not go well,” she comments dryly.  John blinks at her, chewing his lips like he doesn’t quite know if he’s meant to reply. 

“The man’s a coward, but not a fool,” Thomas replies wearily  “He knows he can’t smuggle goods so long as the Navy is in place.  Likely he’ll try to pass his enterprise off as a simple merchant with ample connections.” 

John’s shifts so he’s sitting a touch closer to the door.  They’re halfway back to town now.  He’s clearly uncomfortable.  Doesn’t know what to do or say now that he’s here.  His smart mouth had nearly gotten him killed, but strangely he seems to have found that less terrifying than being in a carriage with them.  When his fingers idly start making their way toward the door, Thomas sighs.  

“If you try escaping while the carriage is in motion you’re likely to break your neck.” 

“Not if I’m quick about it,” John informs him in return.  Still, his hands inch back to his lap.  Disatisfaction evident.  

It seems John Silver is capable of crafting an argument for anything.  But Miranda can’t help but wonder if he’s interested in pushing boundaries out of an eagerness to see something destroyed, or as a test in how far he’s allowed to misbehave.  “Have you lived in Nassau your whole life?” she asks as she takes in his appearance critically. 

His complexion is darker than hers and Thomas’, certainly, and his hair curls in quite a unique fashion.  She tries to place the accent, but it’s strange to her.  Almost as if it shifts and changes in places that don’t fit into any particular geographic location she’s aware of.  An all around amalgamation that obscures him utterly.  It’s a shockingly forgettable tone. 

She’s not surprised in the least when the boy shrugs his shoulders and tells her, “Not long.”  He squints a touch.  As if trying to get a better look at them too.  “What sort of job do you need doing?” 

“You’ll be assisting Mr. Scott and my wife in the setting up and maintaining of the household,” Thomas replies without even a moment’s hesitation.  “Organizing the interior, mending any and all broken boards or panels.  There are several loose frames that I want in decent condition.  When the household is in good order, I believe that our cook will need assistance in the kitchen.  Have you any experience in such matters?”

Something flickers over the boy’s face.  An unnamable emotion that is gone before Miranda can decipher it.  But he tells them, “I used to work with a carpenter,” casually.  Adding, “And a butcher,” with only a moment’s hesitation.   

“Quite a resume for one as young as you,” Miranda tells him.  “Do you have any other hidden talents?” 

He shrugs.  “Was a cabin boy until recently.”  At this, he grins at Thomas.  “My place of work...rather sunk.” 

The reminder is as unpleasant to her as it is to her husband.  She can feel how he stiffens at her side.  Can see his lips pressing into a thin line in displeasure.  James used to tell them that society needed its monsters.  Perhaps it’s true.  When the monsters come in the form of adolescent boys without homes or jobs because the brave knights have come and destroyed it all, she cannot help but wonder who the true monster is. 

After all, wouldn’t the person who burned down her home be a monster in her eyes as well? 

Alfred certainly was. 

More and more, she cannot help but consider that she and Thomas are too.  She turns her palm over at her side, and Thomas settles his palm around it.  They don’t say anything else, and the boy doesn’t offer his commentary. 

Thankfully, the remainder of the journey home is quick and painless, though they arrive before any of the staff or guards expected them.  Not having eaten at the Guthries, as planned, they entreat the cook to prepare something simple for them all.  John doesn’t quite seem to know what to do with himself once he’s inside the house with an invitation. 

He stands awkwardly by one window or another, looking outside as if he wants nothing more than to run barefooted back down the street and disappear into the night.  Mr. Scott returns rather soon after they do.  He had requested the chance to say goodbye properly to Eleanor as she was most distraught by their departure. 

Thomas asks to speak with the man in private once he arrives.  They go to the drawing room.  Shutting the door to keep a sense of privacy about them.  Miranda has little doubts that Thomas will be discussing the terms of Mr. Scott’s employment in more detail now.  Though she can’t help wondering what Mr. Guthrie had told Thomas that had ended the night in such an abrupt fashion.  It can’t simply have been John that sparked her husband’s desire to leave before dinner. 

Casting the thoughts aside, Miranda brings John up to the only empty bedroom that they have available now.  It’s the door across from hers.  He stands in it awkwardly.  Uncomfortable in every possible way.  “Do you have much personal belongings?” she asks, as she gestures to the drawers he could use for his things.  The look she receives is altogether quite uncomfortable. Of course he wouldn’t have much.  He’d already told her his home was gone.  

“Why would you want me in your house?” he wants to know.  “I’ve already stolen once, why do you think I won’t again?” 

“Perhaps you will.”  She’s not above contemplating such a possibility.  “But I’d like to think you’re smart enough to know that these accommodations are far superior to living wherever you have been.”

Miranda isn’t expecting the barking laugh that erupts from behind John’s chapped lips.  The way he looks at her incredulously.  “I’d rather sleep under the stars than live in a house simply because it’s a house.” 

“You’re still young,” she sighs.  “Living the life of a vagabond may seem exciting, but-”

“You’re naive.” 

She’s never been called naive a day in her life.  Never had someone, of any age, look at her and so plainly tell her that she is incapable of instituting a proper sense of logic (let alone someone so young).  The insult hurts worse than it should.  Gouging her insides until it finds the shame and despair that came with realizing that all their efforts in saving James had been for naught. 

“Perhaps I am.” she manages.  “Why don’t you explain it to me?” 

John didn’t seem to be expecting the question.  If anything, he seemed to expect her to abandon him like that.  Just leave and not come back.  She supposes it’s a reasonable assumption, he’d clearly said to be mean.  

“Sometimes home isn’t a nice place to be, and you just want to be someplace far away.  Where you never have to see anyone you know ever again.  Because they ruined everything, and they didn’t do anything to stop it.  I’d rather live out there,” he juts his head toward the window, “then go back to that.  And it has nothing to do with how  _ exciting  _ living outside may be.” 

A kind of electricity fills the room.  Standing Miranda’s arm hairs on end.  Her heart pounds heavily in her chest.  Her mouth dries.  She swallows in an attempt to steady herself, but it is not nearly good enough.  Licking her lips again, she thinks of how it felt watching Alfred Hamilton fall down the stairs of his home.  

How it felt murdering the man with a flick of her wrist.  Her husband at her side.  How they had penned the letter request James’ release from Bethlem that very night.  Preparing to leave everything behind. 

It had felt so  _ good.   _ So  _ right.  _

“You’re wrong, John,” Miranda murmurs.  “I know precisely what you mean...I just hadn’t thought that someone so young would understand too.” 

John’s brow furrow in confusion.  His nose scrunches as he clearly tries to process her sudden change of pace.  A knock at the door signals Thomas and Mr. Scott’s arrival.  Thomas has one of his old shirts in hand.  He hands it to John without further consideration.  “We’ll find some more suitable clothing for you in the morning,” he tells John simply.  

Meanwhile, their house guest stares at the shirt as if he has no idea what to do with it.  He even looks at Mr. Scott for guidance, but the man doesn’t even bat an eye at the open confusion.  He’s looking at Miranda instead.  Clearly waiting for a reaction that she’s not sure how to give.  She doesn’t know what he wants. 

“Starting in the morning, Joh, you and Akinbode--”

“--Who?” John cuts in.

Thomas, however is perfectly patient.  “Akinbode, Mr. Scott’s  _ name,  _ John.” He waits as John tries out the unfamiliar word.  Looking shyly at their other guest until he’s told it’s correct.  “You two will be of the utmost importance in the coming days, and I’d like it if you can work together with me on this.” 

“How are we going to be of any importance to  _ you?”  _ John asks.  To be entirely fair, even Mr- _ Akinbode,  _ seemed a bit dazed by Thomas’ suggestion. 

“I cannot govern a people I don’t understand, and at the moment all I’ve succeeded in doing is ending the lives of hundreds while destroying the homes of hundreds more.”

“And you think... _ we’re  _ the best people to help you with that?” John asks.  He doesn’t seem entirely certain about it.  In fact, he seems more than a little dumbfounded he’s even being considered. 

“I think it’s safe to say I’m already familiar with the wealthy british colonial perspective, yes.” 

It’s the most energized Miranda’s seen him be since before they’d gotten the letter.  He’s practically thrumming in excitement.  A battle plan laying itself before him, ready for him to sink his teeth into. 

“If...if you think it’ll help…” John mumbles.  He pulls the shirt to hold against his chest. 

Thomas smiles and kneels before him.  Places both hands on John’s shoulders.  Telling him, “It will help in more ways than you can possibly imagine.”

He’s right of course.  Miranda isn’t oblivious to the reasoning.  She knows what he’s doing.  He can’t go through with the plan to pardon the pirates.  Can’t turn back the clock to save James.  But he can do this.  He can free a slave on New Providence Island and he can rescue a homeless child from a life of despair. 

He can try to fix the island in all the ways he wished he could, but only with the tools of the now. 

Miranda wishes she could repurpose her rage so quickly.  

Perhaps it will come in time. 

And maybe then she too will be free.

***

Sometime in the night, she wakes. 

There was a sound.  A creaking of wood.  Like something opening.  Something thunking as it falls on the other side of the house.  Miranda lays in bed and listens.  It doesn’t repeat itself, but anxiety has wormed its way into her chest.  Sitting upright, she pulls her robe on and strikes a candle.  

She opens her door quietly and peers out into the big hall.  Nothing.  The house is silent.  Not even a creak in the wood as it settles into place.  Quietly, she creeps across the hall.  The sound had come from roughly this direction.  Maybe John had fallen out of bed.  Perhaps he’s hurt. 

Hundreds of uncomfortable images dance before her mind.  Before she can open the door, though, she hears a voice.  John’s voice.  Whispering in the night.  “Sorry I didn’t come home…” she waits.  Half expecting some kind of reply.  If there is one, it’s too softly spoken to be heard through the door.  

Leaning closer, she hugs her robe tight around her shoulders.  Straining to listen.  “They wouldn’t let me leave.  Want me to stay here and help them, I guess.”  He pauses again.  “I was just getting ready go go but--why  _ should  _ I stay?”

Swallowing thickly Miranda, Miranda lifts her hand.  Wraps once on the door before pushing it open.  Brandishing her candle like a knight with a sword. 

There’s no one there.  No one except John sitting at the window.  Knees drawn to his chest.  Watching her with tired eyes.  “John?” she asks slowly.  “Who are you talking to?” 

“Nobody,” John replies.  He sounds almost somber.  Upset.  “Just a ghost.”  He unfolds himself slowly.  Walking toward the bed as if he were a criminal preparing for his execution.  He crawls up onto the mattress, and tugs the blanket over him. 

Uncertain as to how to proceed, Miranda bites her lip.  “Try to get some sleep.  It’s late, and you have a big day tomorrow.” 

He nods vaguely, and then very studiously waits for her to go.  Not sure what she’s supposed to do anymore, she takes a step back to the door.  “Sleep well,” she manages, surprised when he actually returns it.  

Returning to her room, she sets her candle down and climbs back into bed.  

In the morning, John doesn’t mention it, and there’s nothing to show that anyone else could have possibly been in the house.  She stands at the window and looks outside, trying to decide if maybe she was going crazy.  Or perhaps, more kindly, perhaps it had all been just a dream.

* * *

 

_ Then,  _

_ February 1, 1706 _

James returns to the Gibson’s shop in the morning.  His head is aching badly from the night before, and there’s an unsteady shake to his hands that is inexcusable.  He never used to drink this much.  Never used to need it to sleep.  The doctors had told him time and again how liquor led to perversions, but James had only imbibed socially in the past.  Excess is a new phenomenon affording him rather expected opinions.  He just doesn’t want to think about anything.  

Something made all the harder when he finds Jack kneeling by the bench James had been working on the day before.  It’s in pieces.  The legs that James had spent hours sanding to perfection are frayed and stained with blood.  A massive split down the center proves just how weak the construction must have been.

Irritation builds to a nearly insurmountable levels.  He stands behind the boy, watching as he struggles to pick up individual splinters of wood.  Tears streaming down his face, though his shoulders aren’t hitching in the slightest.  He’s barely making a sound.  “What happened?” James asks.  His voice sounds rough and angry even to his own ears.  He isn’t surprised that the boy flinches.  That he keeps his head ducked down.  There’s a faint tremor running through his spine now, as if waiting for the inevitable punishment that corresponds with this latest catastrophe. 

“Accident,” the boy tells him quietly.  James wants to hit something.  He does.  He wants to lash out and shout.  Anger is turning his vision red, and his knuckles remind him they haven’t had a good fight in ages.  Even as his skin protests the possibility of more scars.  

“If you’re going to lie,” James growls out, “at least make it sound good.”  There’s blood on the back of the boy’s shirt.  A bruise peeking out from behind his collar.  It’s nearly hidden by the thick forest of black curls at Jack’s neck, but James knows wounds.  He knows all about hiding them too.  

Swallowing back the burning hatred that swirls through him, James kneels.  Jack’s fingers freeze in mid air.  His breathing all but stutters to a halt.  He’s staring vacantly downward.  “When is he coming back?” James asks. 

There’s not enough time to fix the bench entirely, but something might be done to lessen the damage.  “Later.”  Blue eye slowly rise, and James curses.  He can’t help reaching a hand out.  Touching the split lip and battered face.  The boy flinches away from it, but doesn’t draw back completely.  Resigned to the touch. 

“One of these days, he’s going to kill you.” There’s no skirting around that fact.  Jack’s too young and too small to withstand this kind of punishment for much longer.  It’s only a matter of time for him.  

“It doesn’t matter,” Jack says in return.  He goes back to picking up the pieces of James’ work.  That anger is back. Hot and incandescent.  He wants to burn this place to the ground and everything in it.  

A doctor once told him that his hair meant he was predisposed to the devil’s vices.  That his red hair served as a harbinger for violence.  Villainy and wickedness festered in his soul.  He wondered where the black haired Gibson stood on that scale.  For if James were the manifestation of violence, then Gibson must be pure malevolence itself. 

Swallowing thickly, James sets to helping the boy clean.  He starts fixing the legs of the bench.  Sanding and recarving what he needs to get it all to fit together properly.  He doesn’t really talk to Jack again.  Leaves him to fix things on his own.  However, he finds it’s rather easy to direct the boy into doing what needs to be done. 

The child’s intuitive enough to know what James wants without him having to direct him.  Fetching supplies from the equipment James had brought even while managing his own complications.  Customers come in every now and then, asking for one cut or another.  They all stare at Jack’s face, and Jack stares back defiantly.  Strangely, it forms a burst of pride in James he hadn’t been expecting. 

The whole town is more than aware of Gibson’s penchant for beating his son.  No one’s said anything because it simply wasn’t proper to say something.  Likely everyone believed Jack had done something to deserve it.  Particularly when they listen to Gibson’s drunken rants about the class of woman Jack’s mother was, and the kind of work Jack provides. 

Analyzing it now, James is rather certain that Jack is a perfectly competent worker.  Full grown men would struggle under the hauls he’s constantly dragging about.  He knows how to use the butcher knife and he sections off his cuts with efficiency.  He’s also clearly lettered to some capacity because after each purchase he makes a notation in the shop’s ledger and calculates the costs accumulated. 

Come noon time, James thinks they’ve done a good job of setting the shop back into order.  The bench isn’t nearly as bad as James had originally suspected, and he can fix it up nicely for the future.  Jack collapses onto a stool, breathing hard and hunched over.  There’s an uncomfortable rattle in his chest that strangles each inhale and exhale.  James can hear the hissing whine even across the shop.  It’s the sign of a damaged rib at the very least, though he suspects broken.  

Glancing toward the windows, he searches for Gibson.  Seeing the man nowhere, James shakes his head.  His brain reminds him that nothing good can come of this. It remains most dissatisfied in regards to his present behavior. 

“Did you bandage your wounds?” James asks, telling his brain to be silent.  His fingers curl inwards.  Curious about his intentions.  

“I’m fine,” Jack tells him.  

“You’re not fine,” James refutes.  He kneels by the stool.  Holds his hands open and to the side.   _ We’re friendly,  _ his hands inform Jack.  Based on his posture, Jack doesn’t agree.  He hasn’t moved away.   Hasn’t done much of anything, really.  But his lack of response is just as telling as if he had a truly violent one.  He sits perfectly still.  A cornered fox waiting for its opening to flee.  James tries his best to remember what Hennessey used to do whenever James tried to hide a wound from him. 

After his father’s death, James had had no shortage of  _ accidents  _ that led to injuries.  He fought with every person he could manage.  Threw punches this way and that.  Climbed trees and riggings with little care as to what would happen if he fell a great distance to the hard ground below.  

Hennessey never raised his voice during these times.  Seemed more resigned to the notion of mending wounds than anything else.  When the hurts came from fights, Hennessey would train James that much harder afterwards.  Perhaps deciding that if James was intent on getting himself into trouble he should at least learn how to not die in the process.  When the hurts came from something else...Hennessey generally just listened to him.  Let him talk about what he needed to until there was nothing left to be said. 

They never talked about Bethlem. 

James couldn’t bring himself to form words, and Hennessey couldn’t meet his eyes whenever the topic was raised.  The utterly disappointed look the man had whenever they interacted now was far too much for James to ignore.  He was actually  _ grateful  _ when the man needed to return to his post.  At least it meant that he didn’t need to see how much he’d failed his would-be father.  How much he broke the man’s heart.   

Swallowing thickly, James gestures at Jack again.  “Let me look at your back.” 

“Why?” 

“If you haven’t disinfected it properly you’re going to get sick and die a horrible death.” Jack opened his mouth to make an argument, and James cut him off with the rebuttal, “And likely be beaten thoroughly the whole whil as you’ll be unable to attend to your duties.”  He has no desire to listen to Jack say it didn’t matter.  It  _ did  _ matter. 

Patience is not one of the virtues James cares for.  He hates waiting.  Hates how sitting in contemplation too often brings back memories of stone walls and a cough that wouldn’t abate.  Clothes that could never block the chill.  The sound of agony echoing off every rocky surface.  

Still.  Even if the end result is not something that James ever cares much for, waiting does eventually force change.  Jack shifts a little.  Just enough for James to pull up his shirt.  He does so with great care.  As gentle as he can.  It’s not enough. 

The fibers of Jack’s shirt have glued to his back.  He hadn’t bandaged the wounds, then.  Wincing, James releases the shirt.  There’s no point.  He doesn’t have anything that can help, and to do it without hurting Jack more they’d need water and good supplies. 

“You need to wash your back,” James tells him softly.  

“Okay.”  Jack doesn’t sound entirely pleased with the idea.  In fact, he sounds almost like he’s just going through the motions.  Agreeing because this is the part of the conversation where he’s meant to agree. 

“Has he always been like this?” James asks him. 

It earns him a hollow laugh.  “Does it matter?”  No.  It really doesn’t.  James doesn’t have a chance to tell him that, though.  Jack’s pushing himself back to his feet.  One hand pressed against his side.  “It’s my fault anyway.” 

James wants to argue with him.  Wants to explain that no matter what he did, it didn’t warrant this.  But his personal feelings are antithetical to the way the world actually works.  He’d been imprisoned for falling in love.  Who knew what infarctions earned such treatment.  Perhaps outside of the public eye, Jack really was the miserable cur his father made him out to be. 

Doubtful. 

But entirely possible. 

He doesn’t see enough of Jack to truly know.  

_ It’s not your concern,  _ James’ heart tells him.   _ Just forget about it.   _

Just like he forgot the Hamiltons, the Navy, and London.  He can forget about Jack Gibson too.  

Swallowing thickly, James focuses on the remainder of his day’s work.  Then plans to go to the tavern tonight.  He deserves it. 

It’ll be good to forget once more. 

***

Billow’s Pub is a rough cut establishment with loose values and deep pockets.  James is rather certain someone involved in keeping its doors open is busy swindling half the town for their hard earned coin, but he’s too enamoured with his ale to care.  It’s the exact sort of pub that the attendants and physicians at Bethlem had warned him about. 

There are drunkards sprawled over several seats.  Gambling tourneys joyously being partaken in by the bar.  Countless degrees of debauchery.  James sits by himself and doesn’t want a single thing to do with any of it.  

Usually he just drinks a bottle at home.  In the privacy of his own space, no one is there to see or report his actions.  He doesn’t need to talk to anyone.  He doesn’t need to get involved.  But his feet had carried him to the pub, and his stomach is pleased with the change in variety.  

He can almost pretend that this is satisfactory enough, except for the noise.  There is so much  _ noise.   _ Even if the shouts are fueled by mirth, the loud yelling is toxic in James’ head.  It hurts and draws forth other thoughts, and he drinks more in an attempt to avoid thinking such thoughts. 

The cycle will not abate. 

The door opens and a freezing blast of cool air hurries into the pub.  Shouts of protests arise, and Gibson shouts back a boisterous greeting as he steps through the door.  James’ fingers tighten around his mug.  Jack’s with his father.  Small arm held tight in the man’s iron grip.  Stumbling after him as he tries to match the man’s much longer strides. 

They’re the exact people James came here to forget about, and he almost stands to leave.  Almost.  Gibson throws his son onto a stool, and the boy nearly topples over.  When he gets upright he blinks blearily across the pub, and happens to look directly at James.  Something is there.  Something James can’t decipher Jack’s usually quite proficient at hiding his feelings about things.  Even if he’s in pain he doesn’t show it to the world. 

As though the mere presentation of weakness will only beget more.  

But here...Jack’s eyes are  _ terrified.   _ His face is deathly pale.  “Oh not this again,” the pub matron mutters under her breath. 

“This?” James asks, throat scratchy and dry as he looks at the disaster forming. 

The men on Jack’s sides are all out of their minds with drink.  They’ve pulled out knives and have started talking about Five Finger Fillet.  Except, instead of  _ their  _ hands, James watches in horror as Gibson snatches Jack’s and slaps it on the table.  He’s leaning over Jack’s back, rallying his friends to gather around.  A knife is produced and then suddenly it stabs between Jack’s fingers.  

James can hear the sobbing yelp even from across the room.  He can see the tears.  Every inch of his body is on alert, and the world starts fading out of focus as he watches.  Enraptured.  Gibson’s squeezing Jack’s wrist to keep him from moving.  Pinning him flat so there’s no chance for escape or wriggling free.  The knife keeps going, faster and faster and faster between each of Jack’s fingers, spread out as far as they’ll go.  “This has happened before?” James whispers.  

His hair tingles on his scalp.  His cheeks twitch.  The violence and anger and fury he’d felt before are tripling.  Previously temperate minded parts of his body are changing their position by the moment.  “Far too often to count,” the matron replies.  “Says it’ll toughen him up some.  Do him some good.” 

Seven months of imprisonment, starvation, illness, escape plots, and hiding have left James with precious little to unleash his anger on.  The attendants and doctors had been so determined to strip him of his desire to ever lash out again.  To keep him sweet and docile.  Turn him into a productive member of society. 

All these men in this tavern, and even the matron herself, are considered  _ productive members of society.   _ They all deserve to suffer.  They all deserve punishment.  James seethes.  Seethes more when someone else takes their turn and everyone laughs as Jack sobs hysterically in open terror.  He yelps as the knife knicks one of his fingers.  The laughing only increases, and Gibson just laughs at the man who  _ stabbed his son _ and tells him he lost his turn. 

James slams his mug down and approaches.  

Snatches the knife from the next person in line.  “You want a try, Mr. Harris?” Gibson asks.  

Jack is looking up at him under wet eyelashes.  Pleading without words.  James’ anger is boiling.  If he plays this game, he’ll destroy any chance this child has of trusting anyone ever again.  

_ Do it,  _ every part of him yells. 

So, with his fingers wrapped tight around the handle, turning his fist to stone, he throws a punch, and breaks Gibson’s nose. 

The butcher falls straight backwards.  Crashing to the ground and nearly dragging Jack with him.  James catches  _ him _ , though.  Steadies him with a quick snap of his hand.  Jack’s staring at him dumbly.  It’s nothing at all to flip the knife in his hand.  To hold it as a weapon and keep it pointed in front of him.  

“The next person who puts their hands on this boy is dead,” James informs them all without even the slightest tremor of hesitation.  No one moves.  They’re all caught, staring fixedly, trying to process what just happened. 

Gibson is getting to his feet.  Blood streaming down his face.  He lunges at James, cursing something foul, and James steps to the side.  Lets the man run himself into a stool and trip.  Falling to the ground in a tangled heap.  

James’s fingers curl around Jack’s shoulder.  “Let’s go.”  The boy is caught.  Staring at his father even as his feet start stumbling after James.  He doesn’t let go.  Doesn’t try to make him walk faster, just keeps guiding the child.  James talks in a low voice.  Knife still firmly in hand in case it comes to that.  “If you go home tonight, he’s going to kill you.  You know that as well as I do.  So you can either come with me, and try not to get yourself killed, or you can stay here with him.”  

“He’s going to kill  _ you,”  _ Jack whispers. 

“You can’t kill someone who’s already dead,” James replies.  Then he leads the boy home.

It’s the first thing he felt proud about since well before he ever knew what the inside of Bethlem looked like. 


	4. Avoiding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Brief mentions of child sexual assault, graphic depictions of the results of physical abuse against a minor.

### 

_ Now,  _

_ Nassau, March 15, 1708 _

 

The house comes alive under John and Miranda’s careful attentions.  Their days fully occupied.  Akinbode assists Thomas from the early morning to late afternoon.  While they are working in the city, John and Miranda attack their home.  Together they wage war against the cobwebs, do battle with the dust, and jointly call a tactful retreat when it came time to scrub the mold from the cellar. 

Sitting in the sticks and the weeds that make up the back garden of the Governor’s house, they eat fruit and discuss their next assault.  The militia watches them closely, and overtime she notes that their frosty demeanor toward John has started to lessen.  He smiles effortlessly at them, and they in turn have begun losing their scowls and glares. 

Miranda has never worked so hard in her life, and enjoys resting with John outside, even under the guards’ watchful stares.  She sits on the steps and feels the sun against her face, thinking it’s so very different from London.  She wonders if James had ever liked it here.  

During their more extensive breaks, she takes it upon herself to learn what she can about her house guest.  John’s twelve, or as near to it as he can figure.  He lived in England for most of his life, though he’s traveled so much he doesn’t know all the places he’s been.  It’s not the  _ places  _ themselves that are of any interest to him, either.  He likes special things. 

“Have you seen a dolphin yet?” he asked her once, before hurrying through an explanation about what dolphins were like.  “My partner took me out to see them once when we were in Jamaica.  There were a few of them swimming about in the waves over there, and they’re curious enough to come see what you’re up to.” 

It’s not the first time he’s mentioned his  _ partner.   _ Over the past few weeks, the word has slipped out more than once.  His partner had taught him how to cut wood.  His partner had taught him how to cook, how to swim, how to fight.  The last one came when Thomas had idly mentioned fencing one evening.  They’d gathered in the drawing room to read and relax in each other’s company, and something in Thomas’ book had warranted the errant thought.  John had snorted and made a comment, and the two ended up in a fierce debate over the practicality of gentleman’s fencing. 

The result had been John politely asking one of the men outside if he could borrow his sword, and Thomas laughing as he tried to explain the situation to the soldier.  Hennessey procured some practice swords for them after that, though he insisted on observing the proceedings.

Hennessey had been rather standoffish when he’d met John.  His expression faltering somewhat as he looked him head to toe.  He’d made it clear he did not care much for their idea of rehabilitating John into a boy of good character, and they made it clear it was not Hennessey’s place to comment. 

Ever since he’d taken it upon himself to observe from a distance, but to not truly interfere with either John or them.  Thankfully, he keeps his distance for the most part.  It grants Miranda nearly two weeks of uninterrupted time to get her house in order.  To find some measure of peace in this strange new environment.  All the while, trying to learn more about John and his mysterious partner.  

While most days she only can manage a few tidbits, she finally is told a full story while they’re investigating a small hidden cupboard that leads to a cramped space beneath the house.  “Is it a priest hole?” John asks curiously as they shine a candle inside.  There’s not much room.  Just enough for three or four adults side by side.  

“Where did you learn about a thing like that?” Miranda asks as she lowers her body to the floor.  She can make out the bottom, but it’s quite a drop.  Getting down wouldn’t be too much trouble, but getting  _ up,  _ would be more difficult. 

“My partner told me that in they used to kill Catholic priests and so they’d hide in holes in the wall to keep from getting murdered during raids.”  It’s a simple enough explanation that Miranda doesn’t feel compelled to explain much more on the topic.  

“He’s right of course, but that isn’t what this is.” Pulling back from the hole, she sets the candle down.  Carefully she turns about.  Shimmies so her feet dangle over the edge, then she drops into the hole below.  Standing up, her head can just make it over the edge of the floor above.  It will require some upper body strength she hadn’t used in years to get back into the house properly, but she isn’t too concerned with it.  

Naturally, as soon as she’s in the crawl space, John’s scrambling to join her.  He nearly knocks the candle over in his effort, but she steadies him and the flame before either cause irreparable damage to either themselves or their surroundings. 

Once inside, Miranda holds the flame above her head and looks at the board that had been used to keep the space secret.  There’s a notch carved into the wood.  Digging her fingers into it, she pulls the latch closed, and the panel shuts. 

Darkness descends all around them. John presses in a little closer, his shoulder bumping against her side.  She wraps an arm around his shoulder and shines the light around them.  “Years ago, there was a Governor who lived in this house.  The pirates came and dragged his son out of bed, murdering him in the street.  Chaos descended across Nassau and the Governor lost his mind with grief.” 

One of John’s small hands grips at the side of her dress.  She bends down low, and looks in all directions.  There’s a tunnel.  Leading out from under the house and down toward someplace unknown.  “Shall we see where it leads?” she asks John, even as she guides them forward. 

“The soldiers will wonder where we’ve gone,” John tells her awkwardly.  

“Yes, they most certainly will.”  She is not in the least bit concerned as to what their reactions will be.  Perhaps they deserve the chaos her departure will cause.  Giving John a squeeze, she releases him and hikes up her skirt.  Cobwebs and dirt stick to her clothes.  A rag she’d been using for cleaning had been tucked in her dress, so she takes it out now.  Holds it in front of her.  Swatting at the webbing until it no longer blocks her path.  John crawls behind her dutifully.  “Are you claustrophobic, John?” she asks after a time. 

“What’s that mean?” he asks in return. 

“Afraid of small spaces, particularly dark ones.”  She can’t imagine much light is reaching him from behind her, but he’s yet to complain. 

“The monsters can’t find you in the dark,” he replies cryptically.  It’s the kind of statement that makes her heart beat uncomfortably hard in her chest.  

Something crawls in front of her and she crushes it under her palm.  “What monsters are looking for you, John?” 

“The ones society doesn’t do anything about.” 

They keep crawling. 

Dirt forms mud beneath them and Miranda’s dress grows heavy as it absorbs the water.  She keeps dragging herself forward.  Uncaring as her hands sink into the filth.  The air smells putrid here, like something had died long ago and festered deep in the dark. 

They hear voices sometimes.  Far above them.  The sound of Nassau and all its glory.  There are vendors arguing, sailors complaining, and families hurrying this way and that.  They listen to the familiar steady beat of the soldiers marching.  The sound of a fight and glass shattering.  

Then the sounds fade out, and all they can hear is the sound of their breathing as they continue crawling through the dark.  Miranda’s candle is starting to flicker out.  The last of its wick struggling to maintain life.  There had been no turns during their trek, so if it does turn black they can at least find their way back.  Still, the thought of returning is intensely unappealing.  

“It can’t be too much farther,” she mutters unconsciously. 

She presses onward.  Desperately hoping that the end of the path will come soon enough.  That it will have been worth all of this.  Soon enough, the smell of rot is overpowered by the smell of the sea.  She sees light starting to filter through something up above.  Scurrying faster, she reaches the end of their path.  

A wooden plank is set before them.  A wooden bar keeping it firmly in place.  Shoving the bar to the side, she jerks the panel free, coughing when sand falls onto her head in return.  The candle is doused in the process, but it’s unnecessary now.  Bright sunlight shines down at them, and she quickly escapes the tunnel to stand on an empty stretch of beach. 

John scrambles after her.  He looks filthy.  Black curls plastered to his head and mud covering every part of him.  Looking down at herself, she can see she’s not much better.  She feels absurd suddenly.  A temporary sense of panic holds her brain hostage as it reminds her of her expectations in London. 

Then, just as quickly, she lets out a forceful laugh.   _ Propriety _ , she thinks,  _ can go to hell.  _  She played by Alfred Hamilton’s rules for too long, and it had been for a reward she never received.  She relishes the filth that coats her.  The physical manifestation of her fall from grace.

Glancing about, she relishes in how there’s no one around.  They’re far from the city of Nassau itself.  They’re free from prying eyes and violent stares.  Setting the silver candle holder down, she makes her way to the sea.  Watching as her feet sink into the sand. 

She breathes in the fresh air and she tilts her head back to feel the sun against her mud stained cheeks.  John inches closer to her.  He loiters awkwardly at her side.  Then, she hears him hurrying forward.  Opening her eyes, she watches as he bounds into a small wave coming at them.  Sinking beneath the water and then springing up like the dolphins he had been so enamored with.  

She doesn’t think she’s seen him smile at all since he began staying at her home.  Not if  _ this  _ is what his smiles should have been compared to.  There’s a delighted sense of wonder on John’s face.  A glee that is difficult to mask or obscure.  He ducks back under.  Then pops up nearby.  Miranda can see what he’s planning on doing before he does it.  She’s laughing even before the first splash lands. 

He swats his arm at the ocean and it sprays against her.  She rushes forward, scooping up handfuls and throwing them back at him.  It’s a game.  A game she hasn’t played since she was a girl.  Splashing and rushing about.  She picks up her skirt so she can get deeper into the waves.  Shrieks in delight when the ocean rises up farther than she intended. 

John is entirely uncaring about his clothes.  He pulls his shirt off and throws it onto the sand, then dives again.  This time he comes up with a starfish in his hands.  He holds it up proudly, and she approaches eagerly.  She’s never seen one up close. 

Before she can inspect it thoroughly though, the starfish detatches itself from its snared leg and sinks back into the ocean.  John stares at it with the most flabbergasted expression.  Fingers still squeezing the parted leg in shock.  “Someone told me once that they will regrow those lost limbs,” Miranda offers as she holds out her hand for the leg.  He hands it over wordlessly.  Looking at it like it might turn into a second starfish just like that.  

The leg feels strange in her hand.  Coarse in a way she had not expected.  But when she’s had her fill, she lowers it back to the sea.  It’s not hers to keep.  

Reaching into the water, she cups a good amount and then starts washing her face.  Relishing in how good it feels.  How warm the water is.  She turns to John, words on the tip of her tongue, but they die immediately.  She doesn’t even remember what she’d been about to say.  John’s turned his back to her and is hunting for another treasure. 

There are scars lining every inch of skin.  Some deeper than other, all faded with time.  There are patches of skin where it seems like the scars will fade away into nothingness.  But there are others were the lines follow the sharp planes of his shoulders and the edges of his hips.  “Did your partner do that to you?” she asks him sharply. 

John twirls about, clearly not expecting the question.  He blinks at her, nose scrunched up and eyes squinting in the sun.  “Of course not,” he tells her.  He goes for his shirt anyway.  Rings it out.  “He would never—he would never do that.” 

“Who did?” Miranda steps free of the water.  She follows John as he starts walking down the beach.  She wonders if he even knows where he’s going.  It’s certainly not back to the tunnel and their home.  

“It hardly matters now, he’s dead.”  The shirt goes back on.  Miranda grits her teeth.  She reaches for him, but he pulls away.  

“Talk to me,” she demands.  

John stops walking and spins on his heel.  Glares and seethes in equal measure.  “Why should I?  I don’t owe you anything, least of all my  _ story.   _ You who have done so much to hide your own past from the world.” 

“I haven’t hidden anything, least not from you,” she snaps back. 

“No?” he asks coldly.  It’s the sound of someone who’s about to go for the jugular.  A horsemaster preparing the whip.  “Who’s James McGraw?” 

She feels her heart freeze over in icy coldness.  She can’t make herself move.  Can’t even find the space to breathe.  Her head spins.  Her chest tightens painfully.  Tears press unbidden to her eyes as she remembers the last time she saw James.  His hopeful face as it left to go to the Admiralty and request his aid for Thomas’ plan. 

Trusting that everything would be all right. 

John sneers. 

“That’s what I thought.”  He leaves her there on the beach, and she does absolutely nothing to stop him from going. 

***

The sun is setting when she starts making her way back to the house.  She lost the entrance to the tunnel, and without a candle she has no desire to attempt the path.  Her mind tells her that going east is her best bet, so she travels in that direction.  Walks the beach as she tries not to think of James, John, or anything to do with London. 

For a time, it’s quiet.  Miranda is alone at long last.  It’s what she’s wanted for months.  At sea she had no space to herself.  At the house, there had always been someone lurking.  Now, she is utterly alone. 

It feels dreadful. 

_ John must have found the letter.  _  It’s the only explanation that makes sense.  She would have seen James’ name written down on that page, and known that it had to have been important for them to have kept it.  Her arms cross in front of her chest.  Her fingers tighten against her sleeves. 

She and Thomas have been playing games of make believe.  It’s true.  They’ve been pretending that things have been fine these past two weeks.  Have ignored the hurt and comfort.  Still not once spoken James’ name aloud.  Still never confronted the pain and agony his permanent departure from their lives had caused. 

Thomas has found a new partner to craft his new world in.  Miranda is keeping herself distracted with a child she can guarantee she has no untoward feelings toward.  They are perfectly safe, in exactly the places that they were meant to occupy.  The chasm between them has not abated. 

It has only grown worse. 

Miranda cannot recall the last time she shared her husband’s bed.  The last time they spoke to each other in private.  The last time they actually discussed something of more importance than the latest literary character had been before they left London. 

They make such pretty actors here on this Nassau stage. 

The town comes into view, and she hugs her arms more firmly in front of her.  Keeping her head down, she presses forward.  Walks without stopping, and tries to remember the exact path to her home.  It doesn’t take long for her to become  _ keenly  _ aware of the fact that there are people watching her. 

Voices whispering in the dark alleys and corners. 

She hurries up.  Tries not to look like she’s rushing from fright, but still eager to make it back to the house sooner rather than later.  All the while, she looks for the familiar uniform of Thomas’ soldiers.  Any one of them would escort her back to the house. 

Where she can lock herself away and once more prepare for the next segment of her play.  Miranda’s trying not to be bitter about it. 

She’s failing rather spectacularly. 

An intersection up ahead draws her short.  Miranda doesn’t recognize her surroundings.  Doesn’t know the street she’s on, nor what direction she needs to take.  Behind her, she can hear whispers.  People talking about her.  Recognizing her.  Thoughts of the last Governor of Nassau’s family flash before her mind. 

She refuses to die and be martyred for Thomas.  Refuses to be another sacrifice in this absolutely horrifying game the world enjoys to play.

Swallowing thickly, she presses on.  Choosing a direction at random and walking as swiftly as she dares.  The footsteps keep following.  The hairs on the back of her neck rise.  She feels her breath coming a little quicker than they should.  A little too anxious. 

Rounding another bend, she can do absolutely nothing when a hand slaps against her mouth and she’s pulled forcibly into a building she doesn’t know.  

A hot body presses against her back as the door is shut behind them and she’s held captive in a tall man’s arms.  “Don’t say a word,” is whispered in her ear, and she stares in numb horror as the door is locked firmly. 

Holding her prisoner in a world where no one but the devil knows where she is. 

* * *

_ Then,  _

_ Swindon, February 2, 1706 _

 

_ It’s too fucking late for this shit,  _ James thinks as he fetches yet another bucket from the well to boil.  Jack’s sitting in his house, though, and he  _ told  _ the boy he needed to clean his wounds properly.  So he’s going to.  Even if it’s late enough to be called early. 

James gets the next pot going as he snaps his fingers at Jack.  “Come sit here,” he orders, watching as the boy carefully inches his way closer.  He’s nervous and uncertain, despite everything James has done to make it all right. 

The full impact of what they’ve done is still running circles about Jack’s head.  He’s shaking.  Actually  _ shaking.   _ Full body tremors that almost look like a fit of some sort.  James isn’t entirely sure what he’s supposed to do to fix this.  If there’s anything he  _ can  _ do to fix this.  No one in their right mind had ever thought him capable of caring for a child.  Let alone one like this.  He has no idea what he’s doing.

But he does know wounds. 

As gently as he can, he pours warm water on Jack’s back.  Listens for the hiss Jack should have made at the feeling.  It doesn’t come.  He just sits and shakes.  As if the whole world has spun so entirely out of control he has no remaining capacity to respond in any way.  James grits his teeth, and keeps working.  

By the time he gets Jack’s shirt moist enough that the skin will be tender, he starts to pry at the shirt.  Bit by bit by bit.  Until he can pull it fully over Jack’s head an inspect the damage at long last.  Bile rises in James’ throat, and he nearly chokes on it.  He swallows hard.  Doing everything in his power not to be sick.

Jack’s back is a mess.  There hardly seems to be an inch of skin left unblemished.  It’s worse than anything James has seen in years, and he’s been to the slave run plantations in the colonies.  He’s seen the kind of punishment that can be meted out by fate’s cruel hand.  

“Do you have any family you can trust?” James asks as his feet tell him it shouldn’t be too hard to find Gibson.  His hands argue that he hadn’t punched the man nearly enough.  James squeezes a rag into some of his warm water and starts preparing for the painful process of tending to each and every open wound that intersects a scar far too old for a child this young. 

Meanwhile, he sets Jack to task cleaning and bandaging his cut finger.  Something the boy’s trembling fingers can just barely manage to do.  The shaking hasn’t subsided.  If anything, it’s gotten worse. 

“Mother? Aunt? Uncle? Grandparents?” The list could go on, but there hardly seemed any point.  Jack had yet to answer any of the questions.  Dabbing along one of the deepest cuts, James wonders if he could send Jack to Hennessey.  Get him started in the Navy, far away from Gibson and his lot.  

That would of course mean James had to  _ talk  _ to Hennessey.  He couldn’t do it.  Not yet.  Not until he knew for sure nothing good come from James’ own actions or involvement.  “Gibson never said where your mother was.” 

“Gone,” Jack says finally.  He stares out somewhere in the middle distance.  

“Dead?”

A shake of his head.  Curls bouncing limply.  “Just gone.  She gave me a hug, told me to look after my father, then left and never came back. ” 

Thankfully, the cuts are starting to stitch themselves back together.  Skin scabbing over and blood clotting appropriately.  As James dabs at them, it looks like they’d already started healing.  He simply needed to make sure they didn’t get infected as they worked.  

“That wasn’t your fault, Jack.”  Silent tears started to fall from the kid’s eyes.  His shoulders shuddered, this time from crying, and James hated that he was  _ happy  _ to see it.  

_ Finally,  _ his brain gasps,  _ a normal reaction.  _

“It  _ was  _ my fault,” Jack counters.  He swipes at his eyes.  Cries harder.  Ugly sounds wail from his throat.  “You’re going to be killed, or sent out of town, or arrested or you’ll leave and that’ll be my fault too.” 

“It wasn’t your fault, Jack.” James drops the rag into the bucket.  Shifts so he’s kneeling in front of the child.  His hands fold around the boy’s.  Wincing when he realizes how icy they are to touch.  “Look at me.  Jack.   _ Jack, look at me.”  _  Finally, he looks.  “It wasn’t your fault.  It’s  _ never  _ going to be your fault.  It is  _ his  _ fault and his alone.” 

“I shouldn’t have been scared.  It’s not allowed.  It’s not permitted.  Weakness is--”

“--a fact of life.  A strength.  Do you know why the body gives you fear?” Jack’s mouth closes.  He stares at James like the words he’s speaking are gospel truth.  Like he’s a priest preparing a sermon.  Bestowing divine blessings onto sinners in need of supplication.  “It is the brain telling you that you’re in danger.  That something isn’t right.” 

“If I hadn’t cried, they wouldn’t have done it.  They did it because I wasn’t a man.”

“Do you understand how that... _ game... _ is meant to be played, Jackie?” the nickname slides out without warning.  As though it’s always been there.  As though he has a right to it.  Jack doesn’t even seemed concerned.  Just shakes his head, brows dropping low and nose scrunching as he tries to understand.  

Hating Gibson even more than before, James takes the knife out.  He backs away a touch and rests his own palm on the floor.  Slowly he starts to move.  One stab on the left side of his little, then between the little and ring, then ring and middle, then middle and index, then index and thumb.  Backwards and forwards, picking up speed over and over and over again until James eventually did knick the inside of his thumb.  He hisses as he pulls away, but then shows the wound to Jack. 

“My actions, my hand, my perspective, my injury.  It is  _ me  _ who is punished by my inability to play.  Not the child I’ve pinned down and decided to torment.  There is no benefit to you playing this game, no reward or accolade.  Your fear is entirely natural, and their cruelty is just that.   _ Cruelty.   _ They were hurting you because they could, Jackie.  Not to teach you a lesson, not because you deserved it, but because they  _ could. _ ” 

There are no protestations after that.  No complaints or poor attempts at re-evaluation.  Jack cries, and James repeats the only thing he wants Jack to understand,  _ It’s not your fault,  _ over and over again.  He bandages Jack’s back.  Checks on the broken rib he had spotted earlier, feeling around it to make sure there is no immediate danger to Jack’s lungs.  

Then he pauses when he comes to the bruises that start disappearing beneath Jack’s waistline.  He follows the patterns of injuries.  The dark mark on the back of Jack’s neck, like someone had held him down.  James exhales sharply through his nose, and fetches a clean shirt for the boy to wear.  “The rest,” he tells Jack after the child’s dressed and deposited in bed.  “The rest isn’t your fault either.” 

Jack doesn’t react in any meaningful way.  Perhaps he’s too drained to bother.  He lays down.  Curls into a tight protective ball.  Hugging his arms in front of his body.  

James sits at the table by the door.  He starts filling a pistol Hennessey had given him with powder.  Sharpens his knife.  And he  _ prays  _ for Gibson to come to try to take Jack back. 

He’s chomping at the bit for an excuse to put a bullet in the man, and really it’s only a matter of time. 

***

When the sun is truly and properly raised, James sets about making them breakfast.  He doesn’t have much.  Stale bread that has yet to attract weevils, and salted pork that’s very nearly turned.  Jack eats it as though it’s high quality indeed.  Practically inhaling each and every bite.  He hunches over his food like it’s going to be taken from him.  Desperate and violently protective. 

While he eats, James considers their prospects and tidies up.  Picking up empty ale bottles and setting them to the side.  He’s in the middle of trying to sort out his own financial situation when he realizes he never paid for his drink the night before.  “Shit.” 

Jack looks up at him warily.  “What’s wrong?” 

“Need to go back to Billow’s.  Never paid.”  The look on Jack’s face is anything but supportive.  He slouches over his food some more, displeasure clear.  James doubts that the boy’s had many positive experiences in that place.  

He plays with the idea of leaving Jack behind, but the more he considers it the more he realizes that it’s impractical.  There’s nothing stopping Gibson, or anyone else, finding Jack here once they know he’s in town alone.  Really, they’d be better off leaving entirely than staying.  James doesn’t relish the thought of looking over his shoulder for the rest of eternity.  He’ll need to save up some money for that, though.  Send some letters and perhaps find them employment someplace no one will look for them. 

Hennessey should be informed of the development, James supposes.  Particularly if they leave.  He owes the man that much.  Then again.  He may very well take it poorly.  Another example of James spurning the man.  Turning his back on all that Hennessey had done for him.  The Admiral had established James Harris as a respectable carpenter who had fallen on tough times but was eager to start over.  He’d ensured that James had a job and access to the medicines he needed to overcome the fever from Bethlem.  

Yet here James is.  Preparing to walk away from it all because of  _ Jack Gibson.  _  Sighing, James sits across from the boy.  He slept well at least.  No nightmares or thrashing.  James had been expecting that, for some reason.  He’s not entirely sure why.  Perhaps it had just seemed natural.  James had nightmares...

When the time came for him to actually sleep, a part of him is more than a little concerned as to what Jack’s reaction will be.  James knows his nightmares are loud and violent.  Drinking stops them from happening, but he naturally rebels at the thought of drinking in excess around Jack.  The physicians would be so proud of him. 

“I want you to come with me, Jackie,” James finally informs the boy.  He’s miserable at the prospect, but nods.  “Afterwards, I have work I need to do for the Hubbards.  If you help it’ll go faster.  We can get back here sooner.”

Compromises were difficult to craft.  James still isn’t sure how Hennessey managed it in the first place.  But he remembered how the Admiral used to negotiate with him when he was particularly irritated about something.  

Still, the boy nods his head.  Biting his lip as he keeps his gaze directed at the ground.  “Keep your head up,” James instructs absently.  He waits until Jack does exactly that.  There’s something brewing there.  Something angry and upset.  James wonders if half the reason Jack keeps ducking is because he can’t quite manage to hide his feelings from the world.  “You’re not happy,” James deduces audibly.  “And I understand that.  You’re welcome to feel whatever you want to feel.  But some things  _ have  _ to be a certain way, and that look? That expression? It’s going to get you into more trouble than you know.” 

“Hit it off me then,” Jack challenges.  The bruise on the side of his face making it perfectly clear Gibson had done just that not too long ago. 

Shockingly, the insubordination does nothing to stoke James’ temper.  If anything, he’s uncomfortably amused by it.  Hennessey always wished him a child that behaves exactly like James, and he can see so much of himself in Jack it’s alarming.  Buried beneath a fountain of self-blame and doubt, Jack has an anger in him that he has yet to truly let loose. 

Someday soon, James has little doubt that that anger will be released.  James can only hope it’s on something constructive when it does.  “I’m not going to hit you,” James tells the boy firmly.  “Nor should you ever invite someone to do that.” 

“Why am I here?” Jack asks next.  

“You can leave if you want,” is James’ response.  “Go out that door and get yourself killed by your father.  Unless you have another option you’d care to share?” It earns him a scowl.  “Look, you can believe me, or choose not to believe me, that’s your prerogative.  I brought you here because I am less than fond of seeing someone being beaten within an inch of their lives every day.  That’s it.” 

He isn’t expecting the sharp bark of laughter he gets as a response.  But he watches as Jack hisses as his broken rib burns his side.  As the boy settles back into complacency.  Saying, “No one else gives a shit,” as if anyone else should dictate James’ actions.  “Everyone just looks the other way.  Sayin’ no one saw nothing.  What’s it matter anyway?  Specially to you?  You could just look the other way too.  No one cares.  Not like there’s a law against it.”

He’s almost right.  There’s no law against  _ most  _ of it it.  There’s nothing at all that says that Gibson shouldn’t act in the way he saw fit.  Beating his son bloody because he  _ deserves  _ it, as if it will make Jack more of a man. But there is a law against the last bit.  A law James is intimately familiar with.  One that he’s been trying to avoid thinking of, and can’t seem to manage.  “You’re wrong,” James tells Jack quietly.  “They hang men for this.” 

Something truly dark and vile runs through him.  He wants to see Gibson in Bethlem.  Wants to see him suffer through the cold and the pain.  Wants to see him in those bathes, under the careful watch of the physicians and their toadies.  He wants to watch Gibson as he struggles to make sense of the world. 

Jack scratches a nail against the table.  Digging his finger at the wood.  “They won’t hang him,” he murmurs quietly.  “Not him.” 

“Why do you say that?” 

“Bad people never get what they deserve,” Jack mutters.  

“You see?” James asks, reaching out to pat Jack’s curly hair.  “You just admitted to yourself that you never deserved it.”  Jack stares up at him dumbly.  Stunned by how he’s been trapped in his own paradigm.  James grins at the expression.  Feeling lighter than he had in ages.  Holding out his hand, James keeps his eyes fixed on his new companion.  “Let’s get going, Jack.  I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you.” 

Even with all the build up, James still feels a rush of humility when Jack’s small palm lowers onto his.  He can’t remember the last time someone put their faith in him, and trusted him to do right by them. 

But he’s going to do right by Jack.  No matter what it takes. “That’s a promise.”


	5. Jackie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Discussions of sexual assault and prostitution of an underage character, death of a minor character

_Now,_

_Nassau, March 15, 1708_

The man before her is tall.  Loose, billowing, black shirt tucked neatly into black trousers.  He wears a belt large enough to display an intricate stitch pattern, and his face is shrouded behind a thin cloth.  It wraps over his nose and up atop his head.  She can only see the hard squint in his eyes, but the gloom obscures their color.

There are no candles lit in this room.  Only a fire with a cooking pot already blocking the bulk of its light.  All the wooden shutters are closed up.  Miranda can just make out a table and some chairs.  There’s food set to the side, as though he’d interrupted his meal simply for the chance at abducting her.  

Her fingers tremble at the thought.  Her earlier complaints toward the soldiers meant to be watching over her seem stupid by comparison. She has never thought herself _stupid_ before.  Clearly, she needs to re-evaluate her position.  

The man’s released her at least.  Let her stumble backwards and tuck herself into a corner as far away from him as possible.  He stays at the street-side window.  Watching through the cracks of the shutters as the other men who’d been chasing her rush on by.  Panic starts to set in.

At _best_ she’ll be ransomed back to her husband, relatively unharmed.  At _worst…_

“Who—” a hand goes up.  One finger in the air.  

Miranda can’t recall the last time she felt fear so intimately.  She hates it.  Wishes she were strong enough to overcome it.  Another quick look about the room reveals no weapons she can use.  Nothing conventional at least.  

Shifting her feet, she cautiously moves toward her intended destination.  Keeping her eyes on the man even as her heart threatens to beat out of her chest.  One foot slides out, then the other slides to join it.  Inching closer and closer, until finally her hand can reach the metal fire poker.

She grabs it and holds it aloft.  The action drawing the man’s full attention back to her.  She hates that she can’t read his expression.  That the shroud keeps him entirely hidden from her.  No matter.  “You will let me go, sir,” she commands him with far more confidence than she truly believes she has.

“One step outside and you’ll be carried off by those far more interested in seeing you come to harm than I,” the man tells her.  She tries to place the accent, the sound.  It’s a deep, growling set of words that leave her with little to go off of.  The meaning though...that makes her lower the iron rod just a touch.

“Than you?” she clarifies.  

“Just wait, a few hours here and you’ll be safe to return back to your home….ma’am.” He adds the last bit like he’s not sure if he’s supposed to give her an honorific or not.  He goes back to looking out the window, and she lets the poker drop.  She keeps it in hand, of course, but no longer brandishes it like a weapon.  He has made no attempt to approach her or take it away.  For now, they are at an impasse.

Miranda doesn’t know what to do with herself.  She doesn’t want to sit.  She has no desire to approach the man in any way.  Yet she also doesn’t want to stand here for however long it takes for things to change.  “I would know your name, sir,” she entreats for the second time.

The man sighs.  Seemingly consigned to the fact she will not stop speaking.  She has done her best to keep her voice down.  She’s not a _fool_ about it.  But she doesn’t see any point in being entirely silent.  No one should be able to hear her if she keeps her tone level.

Still, even though he makes no effort to stop her from talking, he also doesn’t reply.  He just leans against the wall.  Watching the street.  Ignoring her like one would ignore a foul smell.  Nothing to be done about it, except let it be.

At the comparison, though, she suddenly becomes aware of a rather _pleasant_ aroma.  Spiced and warm.  Glancing at the pot, she’s not too surprised to see that a soup has started to boil within it.  It’s too much for one person.  A second glance at the table confirms her suspicions.  “Were you expecting company?” she asks slowly.  There’s a second plate already set.  Bread set aside for two.

The man sighs again.  Mutters something under his breath that Miranda cannot hear.  “Eat if you want,” he tells her eventually.  

“Who else is coming?” she wants to know.  

“Are you worried?   _Lady_ Hamilton?” The sneer wrinkles her the wrong way.  She feels the sudden urge to strike him.  Her temper, lately so hostile, naturally flaring once more.  She would like very much to teach the man manners.  Or, better yet, never be in his presence again.

“You’re the one who insists my staying here will keep me from being found by those who wish me ill, is it so surprising I’d wish to know who else you intend on having become aware of my presence?” She is not impressed in the least when he responds by snorting.  Nodding his head vaguely and redirecting his attention to the window.

Something must catch his eye, because he steps back.  Throws the latch on the door and twists out of its path.  Seconds later it opens and a small figure rushes in.  Slamming the door shut behind him.  Miranda stares dumbly as John Silver looks up at the man who’s currently keeping her hostage, and starts chattering away.  “It’s a madhouse out there—”

The man tilts his head toward Miranda, and John finally sees her by the fire.  His mouth drops open.  He stares at her, then looks back up at the man in open bemusement.  “Something you want to explain?” the stranger asks John tightly as he locks the door and finally steps away from the window to walk further into the room.  Miranda’s grip tightens on the iron rod in her hand.

John stares at it, then back at the man he clearly knows well enough to have a place at his table.  Upon further inspection, he’s even holding a small wrapped item in his hand.  When the man snaps his fingers, John hands it over without a word of protest.  The cloth is pulled back, and Miranda watches as the man takes a cube of cheese and sets it on a plate.  He cuts it into pieces.  

“I’m waiting,” the stranger presses on, even as he continues his task without pause.

“Something _you_ want to explain?” John finally manages.  There’s an uncomfortable familiarity between them.  Familial in a way Miranda had not anticipated.

“You’re his partner,” she deduces.  The man huffs unexpectedly.  Fetches the bowls and approaches the soup.  He stirs the pot with a battered ladle, then sets the bowls down so he can serve them one at a time.  He hands one to Miranda wordlessly.  The other, he carries back to the table and all but slams down on the wood.  

He’s glaring at John, and John is glaring right back.  The pair of them arguing with each other without words.  John loses the fight.  He sits down in front of the bowl and pokes at the soup with a spoon.  Throws a piece of cheese in his mouth as he waits for it to cool.  

Seeing as how John is now the silent one, Miranda sits at his side.  She takes in the stranger’s countenance.  “Did you know about his scars?” she asks bluntly.

John throws his spoon onto the table.  The man snaps for him to behave.  “Why _should_ I?”

“She’s asking because she’s concerned about you.  Because she cares for your well being.”

“She’s a nosy—” John cuts himself off.  Re-evaluates what he wants to say, and tries again.  “She’s putting her nose where it doesn’t belong.”

“You don’t get to decide who cares for you, Jackie,” the man informs him with the kind of exhausted tone of voice that implies he’s said it more than once before.  

“Jackie?” Miranda repeats.  The man shares another long look with John who looks even more furious than he had on the beach.  

For his part, the man closes his eyes and shakes his head.  Mutters something again that Miranda misses behind the cloth obscuring his face.  “Eat your food, _John.”_ Then the man walks toward a door opposite them and steps inside.  From her angle, she can just make out the shape of a bed.  His room then?

John doesn’t listen to the command.  He shoves back from the table and stalks after his partner.  Throws the door shut behind him and immediately starts yelling.  “I’m not going back there.”

“You’re not going back to the place where you have people who worry about you? Who care for your well being?  Who want you safe?  Who look at you like you’re worth more than the shit that stains their boots?” Miranda winces at the man’s questions.  She keeps her gaze fixed on the bowl in front of her.  Trying to decide what _she_ even wants out of all this.

When she’d seen John’s back, she’d wanted to punish the one who did it.  Wanted to watch them suffer.  She’d wanted justice.  It had felt nice, thinking that John’s partner had been responsible.  Someone she could eventually have the soldiers track down and kill.  No one deserved to survive after doing that to another person.  

She _does_ want John to come home.  To continue helping her at the house.  To continue teasing her husband and being a part of their family.  Even if it is pretend.  Even if there are things that she needs to work on.  Conversations she needs to have.  She’s so tired of sitting back and waiting for the world to magically repair its broken pieces.  

She can’t get back what she lost.  There’s no turning back the hands of time.

For days, she’d wondered about John’s partner.  Why someone he spoke of with such fondness was no longer a part of his life.  Now, listening to them speak, Miranda doesn’t wonder much longer.  John’s partner had encouraged his life with her and Thomas.  Had wanted John to live someplace where he could be safe and protected.

Somewhere happy.

The shouting has been reduced to furious whispers by now.  Miranda can’t hear everything that’s being said.  She doesn’t particularly want to intrude either.  Especially when it becomes clear that the emotions are complex and multifaceted.  She doesn’t have a place there.  Not yet.

When the door opens, John doesn’t say anything to her as he walks by.  He throws the latch on the street door instead.  Marching into the street with stony defiance.  Likely disappearing amongst the urchins in moments.  The stranger follows after him, closing the door behind him.  Locking it again.  

He has something in his hand.  Clothes it seems.  “You’ll need to change, ma’am,” the man informs her as he places the bundle down on the table by her hand.  

“He loves you,” she informs the stranger.  In case he hadn’t understood why John’s anger had been so visceral.  

“He’s a child,” the man replies.  “He doesn’t know any better.”

“Is there something so vile about you that would change his opinion?” she cannot help but ask.  So far the man, though secretive and quiet, had done nothing at all to harm her in any way.  Her earlier fear had been replaced with a strange emotion.  Something awkwardly related to respect.  This is the man who had looked after John before he’d come into their lives.  Protected and raised him.  Taught him.  Even if he _is_ a pirate, he’d done well by that boy.  

“Yes,” the man responds.  He doesn’t look at her.  He keeps his body half turned away.  Voice so quiet it’s almost lost.  “Something he would never forgive.”

“Are you sure?” Miranda doesn’t know why she asks, but for whatever reason it seems necessary to put her concern into words.  John loves this man.  Went to him when he was upset, and trusted him to look after him.  

She can’t help but wonder if John doesn’t in fact feel trapped by her and Thomas.  If they’ve created a gilded cage where his partner is holding onto the key.  Forcing him into compliance when he wants nothing more than to live elsewhere.

John had told them that he didn’t have any family.  Perhaps that had been a gross exaggeration of the facts.  There’s a fondness between the two of them that is so endearingly obvious that Miranda cannot help but feel a touch guilty about keeping John with her.

At the same time...she doesn’t want to let him go.  Doesn’t think that she could handle it if John left them permanently.  He’s a part of their lives now.  A part she wishes to foster and see in grow more than it is.  

“I’m sure,” the man tells her confidently.  There’s no room to argue.  “He’ll go and let Thomas know that you’ll be back soon.  Change.  Please.”  

She bows her head a little.  Understanding the conversation is over.  Then she goes into the other room and shuts the door.  Her dress doesn’t take long to unfasten.  She tugs at the strings on her side to let loose the cloth.  Shimmying free, Miranda replaces it with the borrowed shirt and trousers.

They’re too big for her.  The collar hangs off her shoulder.  She needs to roll up the pants so they don’t overtake her feet.  The waist works somewhat well, but a belt would hold in place better.  She feels ridiculous.  Like she’s playing dress-up in Thomas’s clothes.

Still, when she steps back out out, the man just glances over her with a critical eye and mutters that it’s satisfactory.  He brushes past her shoulder to re-enter his room.  He hands her a belt and a book.  “We can’t leave until dark.” Then he points toward the fire with a clear shooing motion and she settles in to wait.

“Why won’t you show me your face?” she asks as she thumbs open a collection of Shakespeare.   _King Lear_ is the first text in the volume.  The pages are battered and worn, but the ink is still legible.

“Your husband means to end piracy in Nassau, it hardly seems prudent to reveal myself to his wife.”

Miranda thinks of John.  Thinks of John sparring with Thomas with their practice swords.  How clearly John loved his partner.  How much this man truly cared for the boy she had started to care for as a member of her family.  “He would never hurt you...my husband.”

The laugh she gets in return almost tears her heart in half.  “Your husband?  Wouldn’t hurt _me?”_ he sounds almost hysterical at the notion.  Like he didn’t know if it was worth laughing or crying over.  Discomfort fills her like a bucket in a well.  Rising up to the top then spilling over the sides.  She swallows and digs her fingers into the sides of the book.  “Your husband does more damage to people like me then he could care to admit.”

“You have no right to speak so ill of him,” she hisses.  

“You’re right,” the man agrees sharply.  “I really don’t.”

“If you were so distrusting of us, why would you give John over to our care?” Miranda barks at him.

The man pauses.  It’s like the question had never occurred to him.  Like it only now seems to have become clear how diametrically opposed his feelings are in this particular matter.  “Because I trust you are more capable of doing right by him than I ever could.”  

Miranda watches as he returns to his bedroom and shuts the door.  He doesn’t return again until it’s time for them to leave.  She doesn’t know why the isolation bothers her so much.  Why a part of her yearns to continue the verbal battle they’d engaged in.

But it does.  

For some reason, it truly does.

***

They walk back to the house well after night as fallen.  The streets of Nassau are still populated, but no one is looking at her as she walks at the stranger’s side.  They leave the center of the city, and they reach the Governor’s house unmolested.

The soldiers see them approach immediately and rush them, but Miranda steps forward.  Calls out to them.  Is swept into their warm circle of protection.  Something that’s immediately brightened when the door opens and Thomas rushes out.  He’s out of breath when he reaches her, but he holds her to him with a fierce conviction.  

Akinbode and John quietly trailing after him.  “Christ, you’re freezing,” Thomas whispers against her ear.  He’s pulling off his coat and draping it over her shoulders.  

“Thank you, I—” Miranda glances back toward John’s partner.  But he’s gone.  Gone like he never existed.  Slipping back into the shadows.  Vanished like smoke.

Looking at John, she watches as John glares hatefully into the night.  “You fucking coward,” John growls low and quiet.  “You’re a _fucking coward,”_ he says again only slightly louder.  Then he runs back inside.

Thomas swivels his head to take all three points in as fast as possible, but it’s clear he gets no farther than her.  “Miranda?” he asks.

“It doesn’t matter,” she sighs.  She doesn’t know if she can explain John’s partner.  After all...she never even received a name.

 

* * *

_Then,_

_Swindon, March 31, 1706_

The matron at Billows had scoffed at James’ attempts to pay his tab, and responded instead with a request for new tables to be constructed without the tell tale marks of Five Finger Fillet on the top.  Jack had looked like he’d wanted to sink into the floor and disappear when the matron had pulled him into a fierce hug and promised something like that would never happen again in her establishment, but he’d managed his manners enough to thank her before pulling away to hide behind James’ back.

Shockingly, James’ decision seemed to have energized the majority of Swindon in calling out the foul behavior of Solomon Gibson.  Jobs for new work started to stack up in a way James had no idea what to do with.  Jack had to write down the requests in order to keep track of them and the scheduling.  Thankfully, he’d been rather dependable in that regard.

And for weeks, they’re allowed to fall into a routine.  Jack following after James, getting hugs from “Call me Mama” Billows, and learning how to carve.  The boy’s got clever fingers.  James finds himself looking forward to the quieter days where he can hand the boy a bit of whittling to work on.  He points out different ways Jack’s knife can work at the carvings, pride blossoming whenever the finished product is handed to him with a shy delivery.

Members of the community take it upon themselves to purchase excess meat from the Gibson and then trade it to James in exchange for work.  Neither he nor Jack have found any suitable alternative, and James sees no point in trying to work around the system that’s clearly working now.  He’s more than a little grateful that others have tried to help at least.

The bruises on Jack’s hips disappear.  His face clears of any signs of trauma.  He walks more confidence than only a few weeks prior.  Trying his best to listen whenever James reminds him to keep his head up.  To tuck his curls back behind his ears so they don’t obscure his face.  Something Jack still struggles to do more often than not.  James eventually develops the habit of fixing the boy’s hair himself.  Smiling fondly at the shy smile he gets in return.

Jack’s natural wariness hasn’t abated in its entirety, rather it’s morphed.  Applied in new methods that James seems to trip over constantly.  Jack pushes and pushes when no one is around to see.  He is rude and argumentative, and on one memorable occasion he screams and throws the few personal belongings that James owns in an effort to ignite some latent fury.  It would be effective if James didn’t understand the desire so painfully intimately.

He can’t bring himself to be angry.  Can’t seem to manage the ire Jack sometimes wants him to display.  Can’t muster the energy to want to discipline the boy for his poor behavior.  Jack screams and screams sometimes, all but begging him to just get mad, to prove that he’s just as much of a monster as Jack’s father.  And when James ignores the mess and chaos and destruction, when he wraps his arms around Jack’s body and holds him as he thrashes in a desperate attempt to flee, Jack eventually resorts to clinging to James’ shirt and sobbing wet tears that blur the darkness in James’ soul just a little.

There are nights when Jack falls asleep with his ear pressed against James’ heart.  Nights when the boy had worked himself into such a frenzy that his body had required an immediate cessation of all function.  James holds him throughout the dark.  Wraps him in a blanket and stares at the fire, and tries to banish his own nightmares from his mind.

It’s the one thing he doesn’t have a frame of reference for.  Hennessey never had bad dreams when James was a child.  And before Bethlem, neither had James.  He didn’t know what he was supposed to do when the dreams came.  But is shocked to discover that Jack _does._

James has thrashed awake.  Fallen off the bench he sleeps on and gasped against the floor as he tries to steady himself.  He’s woken to find Jack nearby, blue eyes wide and discerning.  Jack pads over to the pitcher of water and fetches him a drink.  He stokes their house fire.  He curls up at James’ side and neither one of them say anything.  They just watch the fire and drink some water and wait for the world to balance itself out the way it’s meant to.  

Then when the sun rises, and the anger starts building up to an intolerable level, James steps outside with a sword and goes through practiced motions in order to let the violence from his heart.  “Teach me,” Jack requested after his third time observing, and that too is added to the routine.  James coaching Jack’s movements, his footwork, working on his arm strength.  Teaching each position and stroke as Jack’s hand shakes from the effort of trying to keep the too heavy sword aloft.

It’s all they have.

So they make do.

And Jack smiles shy and sweet, each day that James proves that he’s not nearly the monster that Jack keeps expecting him to be.  He laughs at James’ jokes.  He reads books in James’ house outloud, fingers dragging under the words as he sounds out unfamiliar letters while James cooks them meals.  

Jack knows how to read, but his vocabulary isn’t strong.  He stumbles over certain words in the text, so James is often providing definitions or helping him sound out each section.  When they have the money to spare, James purchases a quill, ink, and paper for Jack to work on his penmanship with.  The half formed lessons creeping in more and more.  

It still isn’t... _easy_.

While Jack seems to have tentatively  accepted that James means him no harm, that same could not be applied to every other person in Swindon.  Up to and including Mama Billows.  He avoids them whenever he can, keeping to himself and saying nothing on their trips into town.

Something James had been concerned about until he caught an unknown man leaning over Jack’s shoulder.  Touching Jack’s hair.  Stroking fingers down Jack’s cheek.  The boy just stood there.  Staring blankly at the space in front of him, waiting for it to be over.  It’s the complacency that James cannot stand.  The infuriatingly trained behavior to just accept that he will be in pain and there is nothing at all that Jack can do to stop it.

James _can_ stop it, though.  And he does.  Breaking the man’s wrist when he dares to boldly reach for Jack’s trousers, whispering in Jack’s ear.  James throws the man backwards, with a snarl.  Hissing,  “Buggering _cur,”_ and trying not to acknowledge the hypocritical stab of pain the words cause him at the same time.  “Be gone before the whole town is aware of your _inclinations_.” Bethlem flashes in his mind and he breathes hard as he tries to calm.

Jack hurries to James’ side and follows him as they return to their house.  Trembling and scared.  As if James blames him for any of it.  As if he expects to be chastised too.  James loathes how that’s always the reasoning.

How Jack will always have that moment of certainty that it’s _his_ fault those perverts touch him like that.  “Your father let other men...use you?” James asks one cool day in March.  Rain replacing the frosty chill in the air.  

Jack never reveals to anything if he can avoid it.  Admitting things only if James spoke of them as truth.  Like James already knew the answer, and he wasn’t simply casting about in the dark recesses of his nightmares conjuring the worst case scenario time and time again.  “My father...he had debts…”

“Debts he paid by whoring you out to those with scruples as twisted as his own.”  Jack flinches at James’ short words.  Bites his lip miserably.  “You never should have been touched, Jackie.”

“It’s the only thing I’m good at.”  The words send something sharp and vicious through James’ body.  He stares openly at the boy he’s been trying so hard not to think of as his son.  He thinks about Jack’s uncannily intelligent mind, the way he learns so quickly when something is explained to him.  He thinks of Jack’s clever hands and sharp wit.  The skill he has when he works on the wood carvings or the meals they make.  “My dad...he...he would...after…”

Tears fill Jack’s eyes.  Like he’s confused, and cannot quite work out _why_.  As if he doesn’t understand how this can possibly be upsetting.  Wrong.  “He’d say good job, and he would hug me.  Let me stay with him and not in the...”

“Not where?” James asks.  “Where else would you stay?” Jack shakes his head.  He won’t tell him.  So James thinks.  Tries to work out the answer for himself.  He doesn’t remember much regarding the organization of the Gibson shop and home.  

He does remember a meat cellar.  Cold, dark, and damp with blood.  He doesn’t know what his reaction will be if that’s where Gibson kept his son.  If he provided affection only after Jack had been abused so horrifically.  

They did that at Bethlem.  One person seen as a monster, an abuser.  The one who shoved you into cold baths or carved your hair from your scalp.  Then the doctor, with his patient tones, constantly repeating _this is to help you, please, we want to help, just calm down James, calm down,_ until your only option was to sob against the man’s legs as he draped a blanket about your shoulders and wished you peace.

James’ nostrils flare as he imagines Jack stumbling home and being drawn into the warm embrace of a man who held such power of Jack’s sense of worth.  A man who finally told him how good he was.  How right.  How he helped so much.

“No one should ever hurt you,” James tells Jack that night.  “Not even when they tell you they love you afterwards.”

James redoubles their efforts on the sword after that.

If for no other reason than it makes him feel better to teach his son how not to die.

***

Nothing happens for weeks after that.  Their routine is followed to absolute perfection, and James gives in to the temporary luxury of happiness that starts to fill him.  The last time he felt so at peace was well before Bethlem.

It should have been a harbinger of things to come.

But the false sense of security had been all too pleasant.  The sense of _family_ too alluring.  It had eaten away at the loneliness of his heart until he felt almost human again.  Even his hair had finally begun to grow back to a respectable length.  His own bangs finally growing to a place where Jack had started teasing _him_ about keeping them back.

And then Jack had gone to fetch a tool for James, and he never came back.

James hadn’t even noticed at first.  Too busy trying to force a table leg into place.  It just hadn’t wanted to _go._ By the time he looked up and realized that Jack had been gone for far too long, it had been hours.  Hours that James should have spent looking for him.

He walks the area around the house first.  Checking for any sign of a struggle.  He half hopes that Jack simply fell somewhere.  Not that it he wishes him harm...simply it would be easier if that is all this is.  There’s no sign of a struggle.  No small body curled up on the ground.  No blood or indicator that Jack had been taken by force.

Still, _true_ panic doesn’t set it until later that evening.  When James has searched Billows, the baker, the grocer, and even the blacksmith shops on the off chance anyone had seen his boy.  No one had.  So James’ panic finally starts to grow.

He hurries from one end of Swindon to the other, checking every other possible location before finally coming to Solomon Gibson’s shop.  There are no candles in the window.  It’s late enough that no one is on the street.  No one to see as James slams his hand on the door.  Waiting for someone to answer.  Waiting to unleash his rage.

He hasn’t seen Jack’s father since that first night.  Has avoided the man whenever he could.  He didn’t need, nor want, to see him for any reason.  But...it’s the only place Jack can be.  The only place left.  James slams his fist against the door again.  Nothing.  He reaches for the door and tries the handle.  

To his surprise, it’s unlocked.  

Trepidation overcoming the panicked rage, James slowly enters.  He listens for any sounds of life.  Hears nothing.  A few steps further, he rounds about the bench he’d made.  Covered in blood.

It’s a butcher shop.  That’s what happens.  

James walks around the counter.  There’s a knife there that he snatches without thought.  Opens the door leading to the stairs for the living quarters.  He takes them two at a time.  There are only two doors on this floor, and he opens the first to blink dumbly at a cupboard.  The second, however, is a bedroom.  

A bedroom with a bed soaked with blood, and a body lying still on the sheets.  Horrifyingly familiar blue eyes stare up at him, and James feels his world crumble to bits at his feet.  The life of happiness he’d tried to build, cracking straight down the middle.  With the smallest shards fading away into dust.


	6. Fleeing

_Now,_

_Nassau, March 16, 1708_

“Let me see if I understand this correctly.” Admiral Hennessey isn’t growling, exactly.  If anything, he’s keeping his tone almost regal.  Miranda still feels like an errant school girl who’s been caught snogging a boy in a state of disrepair when she ought to be literally anywhere else.  Jack’s been cornered in this public scolding as well.  Ordered down from the room he’d hidden himself in so he could stand at Miranda’s side and be treated like the little deviant Hennessey’s always thought of him as.  “You found a tunnel under the house, and instead of informing any one of the guards assigned to your care, you saw fit instead to follow it to its end and wander about Nassau town rather than return the way you came?”

“The candle had burnt out,” Miranda replies stonily.  John’s eyes are busy glaring at the ground.  His fists are tight at his sides.  He’s been in a state since his partner left.  Openly antagonistic and infuriated whenever someone tried to speak with him.  He slammed doors.  He cursed.  He hissed vile things at Akinbode who did little more than roll his eyes at him in return.

Thomas had, at one point, attempted to chastise John’s behavior, but Akinbode delicately insisted that that wasn’t necessary.  Miranda knows Akinbode went to speak with John privately afterwards.  Knows they’d discussed something.  The boy’s fury toward _him_ at least had dissipated entirely.  It hadn’t shown any signs of lessening toward anyone else.

Hennessey had tried to call on them after Miranda had come home the night before, but with everything else happening Thomas begged off until the morning.  Miranda had hoped a night of contemplation would have cooled the man’s ire.  Instead, it seems more stoked than originally indicated.

“Of course,” Hennessey sneers.  “Your _candle_ burnt out, and so you took it upon yourself to wander Nassau in the company of strange men.”  John snorts a touch at that, and it draws him directly into Hennessey’s firing line.  “Something amuses you, boy?”

“If you’re going to hit me, get it over with and let me go.  I don’t want to be here either.”

“No one is going to hit you, John,” Thomas intones wearily from behind them.  Miranda doubts he’s had much sleep.  They’d spent almost all of yesterday evening talking about John’s partner and what Miranda had discovered about their young charge.

Frankly, Thomas seems more put out about that than anything else.  He stands at the fireplace in the drawing room.  Leaning one arm against the hearth while he holds the other behind his back.  Posture a familiar sight from their London days.  

Despite the assurance, John seems even more infuriated than he’d been before.  His face is almost purple he’s trying so hard to keep his anger at bay.  Hennessey, too, seems equally as dissatisfied with the response.  Growling, “Boy needs more than a sound beating,” under his breath.

“I bet you’d enjoy that, wouldn’t you?”

“John, that’s enough,” Miranda scolds.  But John isn’t listening.  He shows no signs of being the least bit distraught by his horrifying behavior.  

“Be careful, boy,” Hennessey warns.  

John grits his teeth.  He takes a step forwards that Miranda arrests with a hand on his shoulder.  A hand he promptly jerks off.  “What the fuck do you even _want_?”

Miranda sputters.  She hasn’t understood John’s open hostility since it arrived so forcefully on the beach.  Even now, it feels like a slap in the face.  She can’t understand where it’s coming from.  She tries to find her words, “The same thing your partner wants, John--”

“--You don’t have the first _clue_ what that fucking coward wants.”

Which is exactly where Hennessey loses his temper too.  He stalks forward and snatches John by the arm.  “Watch your mouth, boy--”

“Stop _calling_ me that!” John jerks backwards.  Trying to free the limb from Hennessey’s grip.  He’s unsuccessful.  It only shakes his own body as Hennessey’s hand tightens.  

Thomas leaves his place at the fire and places his own hand on Hennessey’s.  “Let go of my ward _now_ Admiral.”

The man does no such thing.  “Your _ward_ is a thief and a murderer, Lord Hamilton.”

“Who did I kill?” John asks.  Except, it’s not asking.  It’s yelling.  It’s shouting with tears and sharp nails.  He scratches at Hennessey’s hand.  Kicks his feet in attempts to wound him enough to let him go.  Giving up and eventually surging forward to _bite_ the fingers holding him hostage.

It works, if only momentarily.  Hennessey draws back enough for John to manage an escape attempt.  But Thomas catches him.  Wraps his arms around John’s body and hisses when he gets his foot stomped on for his efforts.  Miranda reaches a hand toward the scene, hovers it awkwardly in the air as she tries to work out what precisely is happening.  

Thomas can’t keep a hold on the wriggling boy.  He loses his grip relatively quickly, but it’s a moot point.  The soldiers have heard the commotion and have barricade the door.  John skids to a halt before them, his escape thoroughly thwarted.  Spinning back to Hennessey, he has the gumption to keep hissing vile.   _“Who did I kill?”_ he spits out.  

Hennessey glares at him, but no name comes forth.  “You know very well who.”

“Say his name,” John challenges.  The Admiral doesn’t.  Miranda meets Thomas’ eyes and it’s clear he’s just as confused as her.  They keep looking between the two, but neither are speaking.  Just breathing harshly and glaring at one another as if they wanted nothing more than to burn each other out of existence.  John’s fists curl.  “You’re a fucking coward too,”

“How dare you--”

“--How dare _you?_  You won’t even say his name, but you’re going to stand there and blame me for his death?  Why?  Because _they’re_ here?” John jabs a finger towards Miranda.  She recoils as if struck.  “Are you really so ashamed of him that you’ll keep _lying_ even now?  Then blame me for _his_ murder?”  

“Ashamed…” the word hitches from Thomas’ throat.  His face losing color.  He rests a hand against the hearth to steady himself.  “John who did you murder?”

Miranda’s head spins violently.  She raises a hand to her mouth.  It’s not possible.  It’s not _possible._ John shakes his head.  “Ask him,” John orders them.  

“I’m asking you,” Thomas retorts.  

“I _promised._ And I don’t break my promises.  Not like some people.  Not like any of _you.”_

It seems to be too much for Hennessey.  The man storms forward, hand raised.  He brings it down _hard_ against John’s cheek.  Sending him straight to the ground like a limp rag.  Thomas shouts.  Getting between them even as Miranda throws herself to John’s side.  She tries to pull him up, look at his face, but he shoves her away.

She falls backward.  Startled and stunned as John stays low and, quite amazingly, darts between the space in the soldiers’ legs.  He’s out the door before anyone can hope to grab him, though Miranda hears the men giving chase.

In the back of her mind, Miranda plots the course back to John’s partner’s home.  Knowing with some confidence she could find her way back to it if she needed to.  Thomas is standing toe to toe with Hennessey, chest heaving and nostrils flaring.  He hasn’t even spared a glance in the direction John darted away in.  His focus entirely on the Admiral before him.  “The day before we left, I received a letter informing me that James McGraw died a resident of Bethlem hospital on Christmas, 1705.  Tell me that wasn’t a lie.”

Akinbode quietly steps forward from where he’d been lurking by the wall.  He offers Miranda a hand and helps her to her feet while she watches Hennessey’s face.  Watches as it twitches.  As the nostrils flare.  He doesn’t reply to Thomas’ request.  Does nothing but stare at him.  Waiting.  “Jesus _Christ.”_ Thomas presses a hand to his face.  His shoulders shudder.  “Everyone out.”  Then, when no one moves an inch, he shouts it.  “Get out of my house!  And so help you God if anyone lays a _hand_ on that boy in the meantime.”  Soldiers disperse like leaves in the wind.  Scattering back to wherever they can bunker down safely.  Akinbode waits until Miranda gives him a nod of acceptance, then he quietly slips out too.  Closing the door on them all to give them peace.

“Where the hell is he?” Thomas asks almost as soon as the latch clicks.  

“He’s dead,” Hennessey confirms.  

It’s not good enough.  Miranda shakes her head and closes the space between them.  “But he didn’t die in Bethlem in 1705, did he?”

The Admiral almost seems like he’s going to lie to them.  Even with John’s words ringing in the air.  The anger that had spawned John’s smack.  Even with all the evidence clearly pointing in the other direction, Miranda can see how close the lie comes to being told.  But then, he changes his position.  Closes his eyes and shakes his head.  Mutters out one quiet, “No,” that immediately presses tears into Miranda’s eyes and has Thomas hissing blasphemy once more.

“James...he caught a fever that winter in Bethlem.  He would have died, and your father would have allowed it.  I arranged for him to be smuggled out, and a body to be burned in his stead.” Hennessey’s face is twisted.  As though he’s spent too long sucking on a lemon.  As though the word are foul on his tongue.  

Thomas hunches over.  His hand curls into a fist he presses against his lips.  Choking back whatever sounds he longs to make. “Why-why didn’t he come to us?” Miranda asks.

“Come to _you?_  The very people responsible for the perversions that sent him to Bethlem in the first place? Why would I have ever allowed him to come to you?  Why would he have even _wanted_ to?”

The pain is indescribable.  Miranda feels tears falling freely now. Her chest is an open hole.  Gaping and bleeding out.  She is a tomb, dead entirely on the inside as the cataclysmic reminder of each one of her failings comes so blindingly swift to the surface.  

Calmly, far more calmly than anything Miranda could have managed, Thomas asks, “Where did he go?”

“Swindon.  I established him as a carpenter there.”  And that hurts too. Swindon wasn’t far from London.  They could have seen him.  They could have seen him at any point. They could have seen for themselves that he had been okay.  Tha the was alive and free of that awful place.  No longer suffering under the cruel machinations of Thomas’ father. “It hardly matters,” Hennessey goes on.  “He was dead only four months later.”

It’s like pulling teeth.  One achingly long pull at a time.  Thomas is nodding.  Dazed.  So tightly wound that Miranda can see his muscles quaking under his clothes from the strain.  “Because of John?”

“That boy is not John Silver,” Hennessey growled.  “His name is Jack Gibson.  His father was a butcher in Swindon.”  

Miranda sits down before the fire.  Rubs her face and hold her palms pressed together under her nose.  Steepling them as she tries to catch her breath.  “He said...he said he worked with a butcher and a carpenter.”

“Yes,” Hennessey agrees.

“Why do you believe that John Silver is Jack Gibson?” Thomas asks.

Hennessey doesn’t even hesitate.  He reaches under his coat to where he’s tucked a knife in his belt.  Pulling it out, he hands it over for Thomas’ inspection.  “I gave that knife to James before I left.   _John_ had it upstairs.”  Thomas is cradling the knife in his hands like it’s something precious.  Something he will never be able to release again.  He holds it out in front of him.  Eyes roaming over every inch of the blade.  He even moves toward Miranda.  Sinking down beside her so she can look at it with him.  “His footwork during your sparring lessons, his wording as he explained his methods...they’re all from lessons I imparted on James long ago.  That boy knew him.  And stole from him.  And killed him.”

“Why would Jack Gibson have motive to kill James?” Miranda asks.  She cannot imagine it.  Cannot see John as a murderer.  Even as she asks, she recalls what John’s partner had called him.   _Jackie…_ She recalls how John had shouted at her.  Demanding who James McGraw was, as if it were something he already _knew._

Tears slide down her cheeks in silent streams.   _God I’ve been such a fool._

“There’d been a disturbance at the tavern some months before his death.  A violent confrontation between James and Jack’s father that ended in James taking Jack to live with him.  The night of his murder Jack, his father, and every item of value they owned had vanished.  All that was left was James’ body.  Found stabbed and burned in his own home.”

 _Burned._  Miranda’s head snaps up.  

Her heart beat rapidly in her chest.  John had insisted that his partner would never hurt him.  The fondness between the two that had been impossible to ignore.  It’s more than that though.  Memories sift with careful determination through her mind.  Providing only one possible explanation. “He’s not dead,” Miranda whispers.  Thomas’ head snaps toward her.  Hennessey scowls and goes to argue, but she doesn’t care.  “John’s partner called you Thomas,” she tells her husband quickly.  “Why would he call you _Thomas?_ Why not, Lord Hamilton?  The Governor?  Any other title.  Why _Thomas?_ And if the body was burned...isn’t it possible that it wasn’t James?  That it was John’s - _Jack’s-_  father instead?”

 _Who did I murder?_ John had asked.  

“John’s partner saved me, he escorted me back here safe and unharmed.  I never saw his face.  I...the alternative doesn’t make any sense.” Miranda doesn’t have anything else to gamble.  She doesn’t know what else she can do.

Either James really is dead, or he’s not.  She prays with everything she has that he’s not.

“Where is he?” Thomas asks quietly.  

“I can show you the way.”

It takes no time at all to fetch shoes and a coat.  Hennessey rallies his men and they’re all bustling down the streets together.  Hennessey doesn’t say a word about them staying behind.  He doesn’t argue with them on whether or not they’ll go.  He doesn’t know the way to the small home.  He needs Miranda to show him how to get there.  And Thomas is incapable of staying behind.

The people of Nassau jump to the sides of the road as their procession advances.  Thomas’ hand clings tightly to Miranda’s.  They’re nearly running to get there.  Moving so quick and so desperately that they’re very nearly oblivious to everything else around them.

They reach the door and Miranda goes for the handle.  Opens it before Hennessey can tell her it’s not safe.  

Her heart skips up to her throat.  

The house is cold.  There is no cooking pot on the fire.  No smell of food.  No feel of warmth.  But there, on the table, is the necklace John had stolen from her the first day she saw him.  It’s resting over a small square paper with two words written in hauntingly familiar script that makes up the pages of secret love letters sent after dark.

_I’m sorry._

Tears well up in Miranda’s eyes once more.  She turns and presses her head against Thomas’ chest as he wraps his arms around her.  Holding her close.  She was right.

James is alive.

But it doesn’t matter, because once again-- he’s gone.

* * *

 

_Then,_

_Swindon, March 31, 1706_

“Jackie?” James steps forward slowly.  The knife in Jack’s hand is shaking, but Jack’s grip is firm.  James lowers his own blade to the dresser by the door.  Holds his bare hands to the sides.  One step closer.  “Jackie, look at me.”

The boy’s eyes are open, his head is angled in James’ direction, but he doesn’t seem to be _seeing_ anything at all.  There are bruises on his wrists.  Blood staining him all the way up his arms, across his bare chest.   _God there’s blood everywhere,_ James thinks hysterically.  

Gibson is dead.

There’s no avoiding that.  The man is dead and gone.  He’s even started to smell.  There’s a chill in the room that should have frozen Jack solid, but there he sits instead.  Covered in blood.  Kneeling over his father like a vengeful god.  Seeing nothing.

“Jackie, look at me,” James repeats again.  “I’m not mad at you.”  Nothing.  Nothing at all.  Not even a blink.  James steps closer.  Keeps talking in a low, soothing, voice.  The voice he uses whenever he holds Jack to his chest and keeps him steady when his rage overpowers him.  The voice Jack leans into when he’s scared and needs comfort.

“Everything is going to be okay,” James soothes.  They will need to leave immediately.  Leave and never come back.  James has been rushing about looking for Jack all day, someone will put the pieces together that the day Solomon Gibson is murdered is the same day Jack Gibson vanishes without a trace from James’ side.  It will be impossible to ignore.

James runs through lists of possibilities in his mind.  Places they can go.  Contacts James can use.  He can’t return to Hennessey.  Can’t bear to see him again.  To face the man’s endless disappointment.  To try and make him complicit with Gibson’s murder.  No.  Not to Hennessey.

But there are other skills that James has that he _can_ use.  “We’ll go together,” James murmurs.  “We’ll leave town.  Head out to the sea.  Have you ever been to the sea, Jackie?” His boy doesn’t move.  Doesn’t stop him.

James is within arms reach now.  He closes the distance between them.  Gently wraps his hand around Jack’s and pull the knife free.   _He’s naked,_ James realizes dully.  It’s not a surprise.  Nor are the cuts that run along Jac’s hands.  His back.  His arms.  There’d been a struggle to get the knife and Jack must have eventually managed it.  

Managed it and kept stabbing and stabbing and stabbing until his father lay dead and the ramifications finally sank into place.  

James hides the knife from Jack’s view.  Cups the boy’s frigid cheeks between his hands.  “Look at me, Jackie.  Please?  Come on, kid.  I need you to say something.”

 _Finally_ , Jack’s lashes blink.  Then they blink again.  Like a drunk waking from a stupor.  His eyes work at focusing on James in the dark.  But James sees the exact moment Jack is aware at long last.  Tears spring up immediately.  Jack’s face twists into a nightmare of pain and terror.  He lets out a horrible sound.  Worse than anything James heard in Bethlem.

Tugging him forward, James hisses when Jack’s hands grab flesh as he tries to cling to his shirt.  “I didn’t mean it,” Jack wails.  James looks down.   _Christ._ Jack’s beaten and bruised in ways that are entirely unjustifiable.  God.  What had the man _done_ to his son? The boy’s shaking harder and harder.  His voice raising as he starts thrashing.  Mad from the trauma of his man-made hell.  Voice a broken measure on repeat, “I didn’t mean it, I didn’t mean it, I didn’t mean it.”

“I know,” James cradles Jack’s head.  It’s damp and he doesn’t have it in him to see what with, yet.  “I know, Jackie. I know.  Come on.  Come on, stand up.” He drags the boy off the bed.  Jack’s legs won’t work.  They refuse to hold his weight, so they crumple to the ground together.  Clinging to one another beside Gibson’s corpse.

James’ heart rate increases.  His grip around Jack doubles.  His skin reminds him of the feel of rough hands as they dragged him to Bethlem.  The chill of the cells.  The sound of the wails.  “We need to go Jackie,” he whispers.  “We can’t stay here.  We need to go.”

“Dad,” Jack’s head snaps up and he twists back toward the bed.  He reaches for the body.  Fingers scratching against the man’s wrist.  “Dad please.  Dad, I’m sorry.  Dad.  Dad—”

“—Jackie, he’s gone.  We need to go.  Jackie—”

“—Dad!”

They’re going to be caught.  Someone will hear them.  Someone will take Jack away.  If not Jack, then him.  He’ll never see this boy again.  He won’t be able to take care of him.  Keep his promise.   _I’ve already broken my promise_.  There are bruises on Jack’s hips.  Freshly replacing the one’s James had been so happy to see heal.

Squeezing Jack’s shoulders, he shook him.  Hard and fast, over and over until finally the boy stopped screaming for his father.  Until he could only stare at James in a rattled stupor.  “You will stand up.  You will get dressed.  You will get your things.  We’re leaving.  Now.”  He drag’s Jack to his feet.  Waits until he’s certain Jack’s actually standing.  Then releases him.  

Jack sways for half a moment, then walks.  Walks like an orchestra following a conductor’s baton during the first reading of a new piece.  One beat at a time.  Stumbling, but remaining upright.  

Looking back at the bed, James swallows.  His mind swirls with possibilities.  There has to be something that can be done.  Something that will solve this problem for them.  One way or another.  The blood is everywhere, and the bed is done for.  There’s no hiding the murder occurred here.  But there is…

Gritting his teeth, James hopes he doesn’t regret this.  He reaches down and starts to lift Gibson’s body.  They’ll need to be quick on their journey back to the house.  Especially for Jack...he shouldn’t have to see this.

Then again, he’d already seen so much.  There’s little point in pretending the boy is too young to handle what James is about to do.  He’s seen and done so much worse already.

***

James steals all the money in Gibson’s home.  He steals clothes.  He steals food he can easily transport.  He steals weapons.  He puts everything he can into a satchel that he gives to Jack to carry.  The boy doesn’t say a word.

Hoisting Gibson’s corpse over his shoulder, James carries it down the stairs and out onto the street.  Jack follows him at a fast, but limping, pace.  They keep to the alleys and the dark corners until they manage to cut through a field that leads to their cottage.

Breathing hard, James stops in front of the door, then kicks it in.  It screeches off the hinges.  Hangs limply by a nail.  Drawing in a tight breath, James stomps the rest of the way forward and then throws the body onto the main floor.  Jack stands behind him.  He does nothing at all to help.

The shirt goes first.  James strips it from Gibson’s corpse.  Next, the trousers.  He replaces them with a set from James’ own dresser.  Irritated that a man of Gibson’s physique would fit in James’ own clothes.  

“Go to the bowl, and wash your face, your hands, your body.  Get as clean as you can, then change into something warm,” James says firmly.  He does everything he can to keep his voice level.  He has no desire to alarm or frighten the boy.  Even if what he’s about to do is frankly _terrifying_ James.   

Still, he listens as Jack moves like a marionette on strings.  Stumbles toward their wash basin and starts to clean.  Jerking hands clapping against the water, against his face.  Over and over.  A facsimile of cleanliness in the making.  

James doesn’t have time to correct it.  He needs to get everything else prepared.  Leaving Gibson’s cooling body on the ground, James leaves to prepare the horse and wagon they use for trips to town when they’re getting supplies.  

The horse is geriatric and worth more as glue.  But it does its job more often than not.  They only need it for one trip too.  

Waking it up and getting it ready annoys the beast more than it has any right to be annoyed, but it submits to James’ ministrations as he prepares it and the wagon for departure.  Food, supplies, and currency is quickly stacked into the wagon.  Blankets and other goods too.  James can’t take too much, of course.  But just enough.

 _Just_ enough.

Jack’s staring at a wall in a daze when James is done.  He’s barely managed to clean himself properly.  He looks like he’s lost his purpose halfway through the task.  Incapable of following through with any of it at all.  James represses the urge to stomp on Gibson’s face until it’s ground into dust.

He approaches Jack quietly.  “I’m going to get the last of it from your face.  We’ll worry about the rest later, okay?” James asks.  Because right now they don’t have time to wait.  They need to go.  Jack nods.  Lips move in a soundless assent.

Taking the cloth from Jack’s fingers, James cleans every inch of visible skin as gently and as thoroughly as possible.  Then he fetches a new shirt for Jack.  Dresses him in it, and a warm coat.  A large hat goes over his head to keep him warm.  

James’ hands cup his cheeks.  “I’m going to light a fire and burn this place to the ground, then we’re leaving.  If there is something you want, or something you need, tell me now.”

Jack says nothing.

James nods.  “Get in the wagon.” He steps back, and the boy goes.  Glancing about one last time, James spies the latest figurine Jack had been working on.  It’s a small little thing.  A chess piece, maybe.  They’d just gone over the rules not long ago when Jack had seen a board in one of their clients’ homes.  Jack had wanted to learn how to play, but they hadn’t have a board nor the expendable money to buy such a frivolity.

This bit of wood had been left over from a job.  Small and unusable for their next project.  It’s a king, James things.  He can just make out the crown.  

Stuffing the piece into his pocket, James snatches Jack’s whittling knife too.  Then he strikes a fire and moves from curtain to curtain.  Table to bed.  Until smoke fills his lungs.  Heat flares against him.  His brain orders him to move.  His feet guide him to the door.  He covers his mouth with his hand, and finds Jack staring at him.  Crying.  

He can’t stop himself from reaching down and embracing the boy.  Holding him tight to his body and lifting him in the air.  Settling Jack into the back for the wagon, James surrounds him in blankets and as much comfort as he can provide.  “Keep your head down now, understand?” Jack doesn’t reply.  His silence becoming the one consistent part of this evening.

Trying not to feel bothered, James climbs onto the bench at the front of the wagon.  He picks up his reins, and urges the horse on.

The road is long and dark, but it’s familiar too. Swindon is behind them, and for now he can simply direct the horse forward.  Leaving everything that hurts far away.  

With any luck, the neighbors will assume the body is him.  That the blood on the bed in Solomon Gibson’s home is Jack’s.  That Gibson is alive and well and he fled Swindon in an effort to escape the murders he’d committed.

“Depending on our luck we’ll reach Bristol in less than three days.  We can gain work on any ship there.”  James twists to look at Jack.  Curled up under the blankets.  Eyes wide open and staring at the boxes that surround him like silent guardians.  “This time of year, the ocean’s cold and miserable, but it means that good hands are in short supply.  No one wants to go out like this.  We’ll be able to sign on.  We won’t need to worry about lodging if we’re on a ship.”

The one time Hennessey needed to show James the proper reaction to how to handle a child in your care committing a capital offense, had ended with James in Bethlem.  Even if Hennessey had come for James eventually...the time spent in Bethlem had been too much of a burden.  James cannot put Jack there.  Cannot punish him for doing something _so right._

They were well outside of Swindon now.  Far away from prying eyes.  James knows he should keep Jack low and out of sight, but he can’t.  Not anymore.  “Come here,” he requests.  The boy’s there almost in an instant.  Pressing against his side.  Shaking violently in his prolonged terror.  “No one will know who we are,” James goes on.  His thumb rubs at Jack’s arm.  As soothing as can be.  “No one will be looking for you.”

Strangely, not one part of James’ body is informing him of their displeasure at this course of action.  Not a single thread of hesitation lingers within him.  Hennessey had called him a dead man the last time they saw each other.  Really, it only seemed to make sense to keep the illusion up.  To drift away and become someone else entirely.  Shifting out of the past and creating something new out of their fractured present.

“No one will be looking for either of us.” The anonymity, _strangely_ , feels something like peace.


End file.
